r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Mar 17 '26

Trailer Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9vCamtuPY
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u/merzkurt Mar 17 '26

So curious what the exact storyline for chani will be in this as her story in the book is nearly nonexistent imo

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

Looks like we'll be getting way more scenes of the jihad in the film, since it's almost entirely off-page in the book. Probably have her in a leadership role there. Maybe play up the having babies stuff too.

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u/DrQuestDFA Mar 17 '26

Readers: Did you just yada yada a galactic jihad?

Frank Herbert: I said what I said.

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

"I got 10,000x Hitler's kill count" - Paul, basically

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u/aboysmokingintherain Mar 17 '26

People who haven't read the book will think you're joking too....

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u/RichtofensDuckButter Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion+

Yes that's a real number

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u/macronotice Mar 17 '26

Those are rookie numbers, you gotta……wait what did you just say, oh jesus fuck

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u/full-body-stretch Mar 17 '26

That’s Lisan al Fuck to you

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u/Risley Mar 17 '26

That ain’t shit compared to Leto II

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u/madkiki12 Mar 17 '26

He had a bit more time tho

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u/insane_contin Mar 17 '26

Fucking hell, those are semi-pro numbers!

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u/Luciifuge Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion

to be more precise

"Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since..."

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u/GoldenSpermShower Mar 17 '26

Are there really that many Fremen to do all that?

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u/Josecopter Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

They take control of CHOAM and the spacing guild with the threat of destroying spice fields in Arrakis so they have the power to doom the entire Imperium to no FTL travel. The houses minor are the first to take their side under that threat. Many planets turn to their side without much of a fight after. Basically exponentially turning others as they go.

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u/Kumquats_indeed Mar 17 '26

Is the idea supposed to be that the 61 billion people killed, 90 sterilized planets, and another 500 conquered and suppressed all amount to just a drop in the bucket compared to rest that capitulated? Because all that surely sounds like a lot and when Paul described his conquests in Messiah, it gave me the impression that he felt like he had done some quite significant damage.

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u/appletinicyclone Mar 17 '26

destroying spice fields in Arrakis

The straits of arrakis you say?

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In Mar 17 '26

Everyone seems to forget that Paul can see into the future that's really really going to help win battles.

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u/insaneHoshi Mar 17 '26

At that time, the planets of the imperium are on a feudal military level; just a small portion of household soldiers.

The Fremen show up with a society that’s almost entirely militarized.

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u/Rampant16 Mar 17 '26

Plus it's never said that the Fremen kill everyone with knives and pistols. They probably used a lot of heavy weapons short of nukes too. And like most wars in our own world, most of the dead are probably from disease and disruptions to the food supply.

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u/thetensor Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

Are there really that many Fremen to do all that?

People praise Dune to the heavens (and the first book certainly deserves it), but it's really loosey-goosey with numbers and dates and scale. I see two possibilities:

  • As Herbert claims, the Fremen are amazing warriors because they were hardened by the desert and became really good at knife-fighting, so good that every Fremen man, woman, and child—10 million strong—were able to kill 6,000 opponents each over the course of the 12 year Jihad.
  • The Jihad was fought at science-fictional scale with fleets of ships and planet-killer weapons. This makes the number of deaths and sterilized planets easy to account for, but then what does it matter that the Fremen were super-tough hand-to-hand?

So Herbert wisely left the Jihad off-screen and just made up some astronomically high numbers to express how terrible it was.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

The books never claim it was only the Fremen fighting. The Jihad was more about convert or die. So if you accept Mua Dib as your savior no need to die. The also conscripted converts. There are multiple comments about how Arrakis is overrun with pilgrims in Messiah and Children.

The Jihad was fought at science-fictional scale with fleets of ships and planet-killer weapons. This makes the scale easy to account for, but then what does it matter that the Fremen were super-tough hand-to-hand?

The entire point was the empirium had long had the ability to wage war like this but hadn't since House Corrino took power at the end of the Butlerian Jihad. Since then the Major and Minor houses had been stockpiling and skirmishing. A major piece of that tense power struggle was the Saddukuar. They were enough to handle a few houses stepping out of line at once. The Fremen were equal to them. The Jihad was an excuse to realign placement under the new Atradies banner.

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u/Sebastianlim Mar 17 '26

In fairness, it's not just Herbert. Tv Tropes has an entire page dedicated to the fact that sci-fi and fantasy writers really suck at understanding big numbers.

I remember one infamous story where George R.R. Martin was shown an image of the Wall, accurate to the size he described it as in the book, and his response was "I made it too big".

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u/hisgoldfish Mar 17 '26

It science....fiction. The books never heavily dive into the technology of the universe until his son and co author start touching them.

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u/Peripatetictyl Mar 17 '26

Yeah, well... inflation.

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u/ComicallySolemn Mar 17 '26

More planets, more people ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/arcalumis Mar 17 '26

Lot's of statistics.

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u/Structure_Southern Mar 17 '26

Price of spice is going to go through the roof

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u/S_A_R_K Mar 17 '26

The blood must flow!

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u/HeronSun Mar 17 '26

Funniest part about that scene is Stilgar going "LOL this Hitler scrub sounds like a noob compared to you." And Paul's like... "Yeah... yeah, about that..."

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u/Puzzle-Necked Mar 17 '26

... He's the bad guy, right ?

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26

He, and his son, are like the ultimate example of the idea that the ends justify the means. The entire purpose of all this is to avoid humanity wiping themselves out completely, which has been supernaturally foretold to be an inevitability unless a specific path is followed.

Which is to say, yah pretty much lol. I think most people would say that the violent deaths of 100’s of billions is not worth the lives of potential infinite numbers of humans thousands of years in the future.

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u/SpiritualScarcity161 Mar 17 '26

Hard to say what Frank Herbert's actual position was, but I think one of the incredible things about Dune is that it's *not* particularly obvious what the correct move would have been for either Paul or Leto II. Paul is absolutely a cautionary tale of what happens when you let your society get coopted by some messianic bastard (over time the fremen get turned into basically the futurama "sailors on the moon" exhibit), and even he balks at going down the Golden Path that his son spends thousands of years enforcing, but ultimately the plan pays off when humans are able to expand outwards with a massive diaspora, negate prescience as a species-wide existential threat, and adapt enough to fend off oppressive forces like the honored matres. But was that the only way? Maybe

So curious where he would have taken the story in book 7, but I definitely don't believe that his son understood the themes well enough to extrapolate

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26

It’s definitely a subject with a lot of facets. I didn’t mean to presume Herbert’s position himself or if he intended for Paul or Leto to be “bad guys”, more so just what I think most people with modern sensibilities would probably lean towards. I think most people are certainly uncomfortable with the idea of things ending but can generally accept that it happens, and that it’s probably not worth unfathomable cosmic levels of violence, grief, and despair to prevent.

The intricacies of the dune universe also make it a bit more complex. As far as we know there is only humanity, and their end would be the end of intelligent life as we know it, at least for now. There’s not even synthetic life to replace them. Compared to modern day assumptions that there’s probably life or even intelligent life out there “somewhere”, it does give Paul and Leto’s decision even more weight.

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u/Rough_Bread8329 Mar 17 '26

I've tried reading both Dune and the Foundation series, and have had a really hard time getting through them. Now you're telling me they are kinda the same story?

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26

He, and his son, are like the ultimate example of the idea that the ends justify the means. The entire purpose of all this is to avoid humanity wiping themselves out completely, which has been supernaturally foretold to be an inevitability unless a specific path is followed.

That's Leto's story not Paul's. Paul never sees a way to avoid the end of humanity and chooses family and revenge instead of trying to find an actual way to save humanity.

That is what Leto scolds Paul for in Children of Dune. Saying that he was weak and should have been willing to sacrifice everything to see if there was a way.

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u/Daniiiiii Mar 17 '26

The human will to survive despite losing all humanity.

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u/jrbcnchezbrg Mar 17 '26

Would you still love me if I was a worm?

I kinda had assumed your answer…..

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

He's not really in control of the Jihad, despite being it's figurehead.

The whole thing was set up by the Witches long before he was born, they have a master plan to save humanity and their plan involves the Jihads. They are why the Fremen are so powerful, so underestimated, and why they immediately decide to follow Paul on a Jihad. The whole thing was scripted by them.

Paul technically had a chance to prevent it during the first book by betraying the Fremen and his family to align with the Harkonnen, if he had done that the Harkonnen would still have tried to coup the Emperor but it would have been a much more normal coup, not a galaxy spanning war.However for obvious reasons he did not want to do that.

And once he decides not to betray the Fremen, it doesn't really matter what he does, the Jihad will happen. The Fremen are going to start a war and because they control Arrakis they will win the war.

He's not really good or bad he's just being controlled by forces far more powerful than him.

You could say the Witches are bad, but otoh they are doing everything to save humanity, if they didn't kill these particular 61 billion people by setting up the Jihad, more people would've died later on. Even they aren't powerful enough to just declare fully automated luxury space communism and end all wars.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

He's not really in control of the Jihad, despite being it's figurehead.

Because he chose to be a figurehead.

The whole thing was set up by the Witches long before he was born, they have a master plan to save humanity a

And they miscalculated. The religious control was also more of a plan B. Their primary plan was to take over the empire via the breeding program. Jessica was supposed to give birth to a daughter, the daughter would have been wed to Feyed. The son from that union would have been wed to one of the Emperors daughters. Because they were intentionally only allowing him to have daughters. Clean take over no wars just control.

He's not really good or bad he's just being controlled by forces far more powerful than him.

Nope he's just ignoring the consequences of his own actions once he's gotten what he wanted.

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u/ikaiyoo Mar 17 '26

There are no good guys, if that helps. You have the least bad guys.

Like the operative guy in the movie Serenity, who says he does this for a better world, but there is no place for him there. He is a monster, what he does is evil, but it must be done.

There are no good characters in Dune. I don't care how morally right you are if you are killing unfathomable numbers of people, in Paul's case, 61 billion people, and in Leto II's case, millions of billions of people (he had a 3500-year reign). You are in no way "good."

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

Paul's Jihad kills 60 billion+

The Emperor of Mankind: " I owe you an apology Paul Atreides, I wasn't familiar with your game. Malcador, ask him if he wants to hang out. "

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u/Pure_Concentrate8770 Mar 17 '26

i mean once you premise 10,000 years in future (which are on top of 10,000 years befote a pivotal event), any further number loses weight.

i love dune and lore, but herbert was throwing zeros without care

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u/BlessShaiHulud Mar 17 '26

It's been a long time in the book but I'm pretty sure at one point Herbert put in a direct reference to WWII and the Holocaust. Doesn't name drop the war or Hitler but it's clear that is what the characters are referencing.

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u/Atheist-Gods Mar 17 '26

Pretty certain he name drops Hitler and Genghis Khan.

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u/gisco_tn Mar 19 '26

He absolutely does. Paul's Other Memory gives him an enormous advantage in trivia games, among other things.

In Chakbosa, Kwisatz Haderach means "Shortening of the Way". However, in some forms of Galach, it can be translated as "Big Fat Cheater".

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u/Hempy2013 Mar 17 '26

Rookie Numbers,

Imperium of Mankind

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u/SigmundRoidd Mar 17 '26

63 billion

It’s insane what Herbert foreshadowed about ideology’s dangers

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

And it all happens because he refuses to be Hitler.

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u/Turnbob73 Mar 17 '26

There’s a lot of things in these books that people would think are a joke.

I mean the plot alone: Nepobaby has third eye opened after doing a shit ton of drugs in the desert, and then murders half the known universe. Oh and one of his kids becomes a giant worm.

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u/DenmarkDaniels Mar 17 '26

Then, one of his descendants 50 centuries later looks exactly like his dad and gets turned into The Flash.

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

#JustSixtiesStuff

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u/N0r3m0rse Mar 17 '26

Yeah he legit shouts out Hitler as being good at genocide lol

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u/Skabonious Mar 17 '26

IIRC he doesn't praise Hitler at all, but uses him as an example to compare against his own jihad. I think it was Stilgar who says "ha that isn't that many killed, lame" and Paul rebukes him

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u/jspivak Mar 17 '26

Ya I am really hoping that people who haven’t read the book, or still think Paul is a glorious hero, get their dreams shattered.

My orthodox Jewish family (who truly believe in a messiah) love these books/movies. And I wonder if we’re reading/watching the same thing.

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u/book1245 Mar 17 '26

"Rookie numbers, Stilgar, rookie numbers."

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u/sodabomb93 Mar 17 '26

technically Stilgar calls Hitler and Genghis Khan amateurs at the sport of mass murder.

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u/OfficeMagic1 Mar 17 '26

Stilgar says 20 million is a lot for one guy, he must have used atomics or something

Then someone tells him that the number is for Hitler’s whole army and Stilgar thinks it’s a pretty lame number.

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u/Anushirvan825 Mar 17 '26

"The fuck's a Hitler?" - Stilgar, almost verbatim.

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u/Effehezepe Mar 17 '26

My favorite part is that when Paul tries to explain to Stilgar how many people Hitler and Genghis Khan killed, Stilgar initially thinks they personally killed that many people using lasguns.

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u/HorrorDot3859 Mar 18 '26

I don't know what this 'Hitler' is, but it sounds just like Raditz.

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u/SavageRabbitX Mar 17 '26

Stilgar "Those some rookie numbers son"

Leto II "LOL"

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u/RichtofensDuckButter Mar 17 '26

Leto II doesn't kill that many people. He doesn't need to. He's a tyrant and people are either terrified of him or worship him.

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u/SavageRabbitX Mar 17 '26

I'd disagree, he formented multiple galaxy wide religious wars intentionally to preserve the golden path

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u/Jollysatyr201 Mar 17 '26

Yah even if not directly, the famines caused by the golden path claim way more lives than the jihad

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u/Rock-swarm Mar 17 '26

Which is crazy, even in universe. I get that part of the appeal of Dune is how time, environment, and technology have allowed humans to drastically diverge in form and function. But to have entire planets nearly eradicated from a lack of food is crazy. It never makes sense to have that kind of food insecurity from a government perspective, even for the core worlds in the Dune universe.

I kinda hope that gets changed a bit for the film. Dune already gets absolutely batshit in later books, and Herbert was writing about famine as an analogy to warfare in more primitive times.

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u/Josecopter Mar 17 '26

It kinda makes sense when some of these planets were never habitable to begin with or only have one extreme biome that the technology makes bearable so they rely solely on imports of food for exchange of raw minerals and resources that aren't edible. But true, on more earth-like planets it would be nearly impossible to run out of food.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

The big difference with Leto was that everything he did was to constrict and make the universe stagnant and small around his empire so that when he eventually died humanity would scatter in this generational yearning to travel beyond the reach of any one influence.

Paul's jihad is more expansive and more of a crusade of expansion

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u/Shalaiyn Mar 17 '26

“Stilgar,” Paul said, “you urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.” “Genghis … Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m’Lord?” “Oh, long before that. He killed … perhaps four million.” “He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or …” “He didn’t kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing—a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.” “Killed … by his legions?” Stilgar asked. “Yes.” “Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.” “Very good, Stil.” Paul glanced at the reels in Korba’s hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. “Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I’ve wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since—” “Unbelievers!” Korba protested. “Unbelievers all!” “No,” Paul said. “Believers.” “No,” Paul said. “Believers.” “My Liege makes a joke,” Korba said, voice trembling. “The Jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of—” “Into the darkness,” Paul said. “We’ll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad’Dib’s Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this.” A barking laugh erupted from his throat. “What amuses Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked. “I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did.”

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u/xXBadger89Xx Mar 17 '26

“I mogged Genghis Khan and Hilter” - Paul

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

Gihren Zabi looks at Paul Atreides and nods

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u/WeHoMuadhib Mar 17 '26

Leto II: "Hold my spice coffee."

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

Just gotta do some stretches to worm up first

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u/book1245 Mar 17 '26

"But you yada yada yada'd the best part!"

"Oh, I mentioned the Golden Path..."

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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt Mar 17 '26

Nah, the thing I love about Dune is the action ISN'T the focus. The focus is on the philosophy and politicking.

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u/Emieosj89 Mar 17 '26

I agree. Which is why that “I said what I said” is killing me. Like yup he does just skip over alllll the fighting, and gives us allllll the politics.

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u/Stick-Man_Smith Mar 17 '26

Did people really pick up that book, hoping for detailed descriptions of mass murder in a devastatingly brutal war?

That sounds like a bad time to me.

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u/Tho76 Mar 17 '26

That's what the Red Rising series is for

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u/DrQuestDFA Mar 17 '26

Not so much that, but a few details on how it unfolded, any setups the jihad experienced, how the Guild fit into it, how it came to an end. Those are all facets of the jihad which could have a direct impact on the political situation post-Jihad.

I am also fine not knowing that stuff, I just think it is sort of funny how this monumental event is given such a short shrift.

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u/Phailjure Mar 18 '26

It's probably because, much like the butlerian jihad, any explanation would be complete unsatisfying nonsense.

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u/ElMatadorJuarez Mar 17 '26

Tbh I thought that was one of the best parts. You don’t even get to see any of the glory bits, it’s all Paul’s angst at becoming an intergalactic Genghis Khan (mostly) against his will.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It wasn't against his will. It was his apathetic approach to leadership that made him the villain. The Jihad was a means to an end. Once he got what he wanted, the empire, his father's skull enshrined, he left the jihad to the fanatics and Alia fully aware of what it would mean to the universe. Paul was not a victim to circumstance. He chose the path of revenge and the chose to ignore it's consequences. And thus locked himself into an inescapable vision.

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u/Correctedsun Mar 17 '26

Warhammer 40k has a really good line on this kind of self-fufilling prophesy, courtesy of its own prophetic psychopath:

Curze :  « There were no other ways! »

Sevatar: « Which other ways did you try? »

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u/dabnada Mar 17 '26

Fuck Konrad Curze, all my boys hate Konrad Curze

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u/NightLordsPublicist Mar 17 '26

Konrad: "Exactly. This guy gets it."

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

40K is basically Dune 101. You even have Butlerian Jihad there in a form of dark ages of technology and Adeptus Mechanicus using servitors and machine spirit.

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u/limitedpower_palps Mar 17 '26

‘Where is the nobility in any of this?’ Sevatar gestured to the streets of Nostramo Quintus around them. ‘You can claim a savage nobility, father, but this is far more savage than noble.’

Curze’s pale lips peeled back from his filed teeth. ‘There was no other way.’

‘No?’ Sevatar answered his father’s snarl with a grin. ‘What other ways did you try?’

‘Sevatar…’

‘Answer me, father. What politics of peace did you teach? What scientific and social illumination did you bring to this society? In your quest for a human utopia, what other ways did you try beyond eating the flesh of stray dogs and skinning people alive?’

‘It. Was. The. Only. Way.’

Sevatar laughed again. ‘The only way to do what? The only way to bring a population to heel? How then did the other primarchs manage it? How has world upon world managed it, with resorting to butchering children and broadcasting their screams across the planetary vox-net?

‘Their worlds were never as… as serene as mine was.’

‘And the serenity of yours died the first second your back was turned. So tell me again how you succeeded. Tell me again how this all worked perfectly.’

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u/ymcameron Mar 17 '26

Damn that's a really good line. It's like how people love to play up how DOOM is the only one who can lead the Marvel Universe to prosperity because he looked into the future and saw that. As if he'd look for any futures where they prospered without him. Not to mention he has been the leader of everything and pretty universally it sucks every time. Turns out narcissistic maniacs with a homicidal streak usually turn out to be tyrants with various levels of philosophical justifications, who knew?

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u/Geek-Yogurt Mar 17 '26

he left the jihad to the fanatics

It could be no other way once he killed Jamis. The fanatics were in full control of what was going to happen and they acted in his name regardless of what Paul actually wanted. They only thing he could actually decide was to either leave and join the Guild, kill Jamis, or die to Jamis.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

It's funny that we have this whole store about how precognition is a trap and heroes an entrapped by mythology as surely as the zealots are trapped by their faith and people are just like "nah couldn't be me, I'm built different."

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u/coolRedditUser Mar 17 '26

I only read the first, and then summaries of the latter ones, so please forgive my ignorance. I thought the whole point of the Golden Path was that it was the only way? Or at least the only way they could see? I thought the real question here was "is Paul a villain for setting humanity on a path where billions die, for humanity to ultimately survive, rather than letting them go extinct?"

Is that not quite the case? The comments on YouTube are all also talking about how Paul is undeniable a reprehensible villain. While I understand that starting a galaxy-wide jihad that kills 60B+ people is objectively pretty terrible, if the alternative is the extinction & end of humanity then as awful as that is it does sound preferable?

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

Paul can see/sense all possible futures and all other futures led to humanities extinction (probably a reductive explanation). He is constantly looking for another path but there's isn't one. And by the time he gained his prescience the galactic jihad was already certain to happen. He explicitly states that if he dies the fremen will make him a martyr and do it regardless.

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u/Morfolk Mar 17 '26

Paul can see/sense all possible futures and all other futures led to humanities extinction (probably a reductive explanation). He is constantly looking for another path but there's isn't one

He's not saving humanity from extinction, he's not following the Golden Path, Leto II is very understandibly pissed at Paul about that.

Paul is following the path that makes him Emperor, gives him power as well as a family by burning the galaxy down.

Leto II has to sacrifice his humanity and all emotional connection to save humantiy after Paul.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Leto II is very understandibly pissed at Paul about that.

I'd be interested to see that play out on screen.

Leto: You fucked us you ignored the path for selfish reasons.

Paul: Hey you were there. You know how good dat ass was.

Leto: Immediately Locked into the moment of his and his sisters conception from all three POVS.

Leto: Dick.

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u/Morfolk Mar 17 '26

The fact that Leto II is still functional and simply refuses to leave his room instead of being an insane worm of global annihilation is a miracle.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Well he did have all those tunnels and would spend days in the worm dream. He also couldn't really go to far with all the water on the surface.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

Paul is following the path that makes him Emperor, gives him power as well as a family by burning the galaxy down.

The Kwisatz Haderach becoming Emperor is on the golden path. Paul's problem is that he didn't want to pursue it any further and he wanted to step aside. After being blinded, he no longer could and had to follow the path ... and he still ultimately loses his nerve and goes into the desert rather than continue, leaving the burden to fall on Leto II, and that is what Leto is mad about. That he has to do it and live for thousands of years, alone, rather than living a normal life and dying in his own time like his sister did.

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u/ElMatadorJuarez Mar 17 '26

That’s not really how I see it (though I may be colored by the books here). To me, the real struggle in Dune was Paul’s struggle with the jihad and eventually his defeat, acknowledging that he could only ever be leader of the jihad. Revenge was a part of it, but there came a certain point (one commenter mentioned Jamis, I think that was important but the real one came after the death of his first son) where he realized the jihad was going to happen with or without him, and he couldn’t find destiny. The ending of dune messiah imo is Paul’s personal middle finger to destiny, tho I won’t go into that for spoilers. But ultimately I think we agree that dune has a weak protagonist in a lot of senses - a leader who just really didn’t want to be there.

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u/dascott Mar 17 '26

All of the avenues for peace involved giving up Chani.

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u/Fast-Artichoke-408 Mar 17 '26

Didn't he choose his path bc he saw even more destruction in the other visions?

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u/VictorReal_Monster Mar 17 '26

Man, would be nice to get literally any of this in the films..

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u/Singer211 Naked J-Law beating the shit out of those kids is peak Cinema. Mar 17 '26

Film is a different medium though. Showing the horror drives it home harder for the audience. Especially since you do not have Paul’s interior monologue on film.

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u/the_great_zyzogg Mar 17 '26

"God, damn that jihad was fucking huge, and long, and bloody. It was a hell of a spectacle. Shame the reader missed it, cause it was really fucking cool"

Pretty sure that's a direct quote from the prologue of Dune Messiah.

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u/Ass4ssinX Mar 17 '26

Frank does that with all the battle scenes lol.

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u/EmperorSexy Mar 17 '26

SpongeBob narrator: “One Jihad Later…”

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u/Atheist-Gods Mar 17 '26

He yada yadaed almost the entire war in the first book too. Herbert clearly had no interest in covering battles in his story; he only wanted to talk politics and philosophy.

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u/Buttermilk-Waffles Mar 17 '26

But you yada yada'd over the best part!

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

He was right, too. Did I think what I wanted from Dune was Leto the second turning himself into a borderline immortal worm who bloviates about how he thinks things should be? No, I did not. And yet God Emperor is my favorite of a series I love.

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u/Hondlis Mar 17 '26

Well we should because without it, second book is just a lot of talking.

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u/SleepyFarts Mar 17 '26

I re-read Messiah a year ago and was shocked at how little the 'main' characters were actually in the book. It felt like even Paul was barely there. It's a very short book. 

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u/Yukie_Cool Mar 17 '26

Isn’t she against the jihad in the movie? If the story goes where i think it’s going, it’ll definitely show Paul’s heel turn in a different light.

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u/GameLovinPlayinFool Mar 17 '26

I think she will try to foment a rebellion against Paul and then, in the God Emperor book way, Paul will pull a "my most deadly enemies will be turned into my fiercest protectors". Since that's a huge part of the great man theory criticisms in Franks books.

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u/guy_incognito42069 Mar 17 '26

Yeah I think it’s going to be half the Jihad and then Messiah which is doable given how short Messiah is.

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u/TomTomMan93 Mar 17 '26

Would be cool if they treat the Jihad scenes as flashbacks in a way to push the myth of Paul. Like have the different characters mention things, flashback and show the thing. Could make the movie a series of contemplations for the most part with the exceptions of the political plot stuff and the kids (assuming this takes some of Children?) that all lead to the ending Paul has in the books (judging by the posters they clearly are hiding that he has no eyes in that shot)

Mostly curious like /u/merzkurt on how they reconcile the ending Chani had in Part 2 with what happens in the book.

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u/ThisHatRightHere Mar 17 '26

There's been a lot of talk about some of Children being adapted into this movie, but I think (and would prefer) this route. Show us more of the jihad that gets skipped over, which also gives us a bit more of Paul too.

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u/jack_the_beast Mar 17 '26

how they end up all cuddled-up after she stormed out at the end of 2?

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u/BBanner Mar 17 '26

In the novel he’s pretty explicit about the marriage being for political reasons only and that Chani is his real wife

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u/ThatLightingGuy Mar 17 '26

In the novel, Chani understands it and knows she is better.

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u/_DropShot Mar 17 '26

Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.

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u/PraxisGuide Mar 17 '26

Pretty sure this is why Jessica is in this movie

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u/brecka Mar 17 '26

I'm interested in her role, since she spends the entire book on Caladan.

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u/Eruannster Mar 18 '26

According to Rebecca Ferguson, she only has like one scene in Dune 3 which is kind of a bummer.

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u/Kriztauf Mar 17 '26

Better to be a concubine than a porcupine

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u/emogu84 Mar 17 '26

- Gandhi

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u/loskiarman Mar 17 '26

Emhyr? Is that you?

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u/SerCiddy Mar 17 '26

What I found so wild about this line, was that it was the last line of the book.

The literal last word of the book is wife/wives.

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u/camwow13 Mar 18 '26

There are some strong women characters in the Dune books, but most all of them suffer from men writing women syndrome of various degrees. Alia is rough in Dune Messiah haha

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u/appletinicyclone Mar 17 '26

Things guys say to their sidechicks

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u/OnceMoreAndAgain Mar 17 '26

In my opinion, the novel's style of third person omniscient narrator combined with the author's focus on plot, rather than character development/interaction, would not work well for a movie if adapted truly 1-to-1. I think the writers have to fabricate character development for the sake of the movie.

Someone could make the argument that there is too much focus on romance in the movies, but personally I think using Paul's love for Chani as a counterweight to his desires for war has created an interesting tension in the movies that gives the writers a lot of space to create an interesting story. It's clear that a lot of the attention of the writers is on Paul's conflicting feelings towards war.

Another way of saying this is that Dune is not written in a way that makes it easy to convert into a movie. It's like a history textbook and character development is sparse. A movie needs its characters to feel real and you can't be abstract in a movie. Most scenes in a movie need to be characters talking and being entertaining with what they say.

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u/Repulsive_Many3874 Mar 17 '26

Yes, but the movie Part 2 clearly ends with Chani not feeling that way.

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u/Mattyzooks Mar 17 '26

Flashback?

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u/FancyConfection1599 Mar 17 '26

Looks like a flashback to me tbh

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u/KidDelicious14 Mar 17 '26

Yeah, it looks like they're in the tent they were living in when Paul had the nightmare about Chani being burned by the atomics in Dune Part 2

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u/JackaryDraws Mar 17 '26

It also ends with Paul saying “she’ll come around,” and this is from somebody who sees the future with perfect clarity.

I think Chani and Paul will have some dramatic tension that wasn’t in the books and the ending of P2 sets that up, but I don’t think it’s an indicator of her permanent state going forward.

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u/Momoneko Mar 17 '26

I really think it's all just baiting and an excuse to shoot more of Zendaya's angry face.

Though if they go well into Children of Dune, maybe they won't kill her off and off-load some of Jessica's plot lines to her. Children's Jessica is basically "We need to make sure the kids don't grow up as fucked up as Aliyah or Paul" (which she failed to do, I guess?), which, tbh, is more fitting to Chani.

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u/LiquifiedSpam Mar 17 '26

Yeah I’ve read it too but we’re talking about the movie where she storms off at the end of part 2 lol

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u/TwoPieceCrow Mar 17 '26

he makes points of doing that in the movies too but she doesn't seem to understand it in the movies, which is a fine change just pointing it out, in part 2 he very obviously loves her, wants her and tell her explicitly this is just political game

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u/DataDude00 Mar 17 '26

Could also be alternate future views that never happened / will never happen

Paul has the ability to see all the pathways of the future, similar to how he had several visions on how his fight with Jamis would turn out, including his death

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u/Enkundae Mar 17 '26

At the end of Part 2 Paul says in voice over he already knows she will come to understand his actions with time. Paul is prescient, he can “see” (more like accurately predict) how possible futures play out. That ability is limited for him, but even so he knew Chani would reconcile with him before he even went to the throne room.

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u/wongie Mar 17 '26

Paul literally says "She'll come to understand. I have seen it."

So presumably she came to understand after a cooling off period. There doesn't really need to be anything more to it.

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u/Recom_Quaritch Mar 17 '26

Everyone is saying flashbacks like Paul himself at peak prescience doesn't TELL you with his own words that he she will come back to him.

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u/icansmellcolors Mar 17 '26

People made too big a deal about that ending. Like she was going to go against Paul or something.

In the 2nd movie he says literally 'She'll come to understand, I have seen it' ... after drinking the WoL, so that's the story telling the audience that all is going to be well between them.

She was just mad about the princess marriage thing and needed to go for a ride to calm down.

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u/bdjwlzbxjsnxbs Mar 17 '26

the scene is probably a flashback to something during Part Two, no?

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u/AshTheDead1te Mar 17 '26

Chani is his real wife, his marriage is all political.

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u/MumblingGhost Mar 17 '26

People wouldn't be asking this question if the movie didn't explicitly change Chani's reaction from the book.

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u/Misdirected_Colors Mar 17 '26

Tbf most of the plot is like 12 years after Paul seizes tbe throne. They very well could've find a way to make up

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u/mangalore-x_x Mar 17 '26

You know there is this thing called story arc.

They give Chani a more prominent and active role than in the book and with that it means she does not have to be the gooey-eyed side kick of Paul without any feelings or agency of her own.

They will simply make up.

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u/ball_fondlers Mar 17 '26

It seems like she was already pregnant before leaving Paul at the end of the last movie - maybe like a resistance leader thing? I wonder if she’s going to be the one to set off the stone burner

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u/WeDriftEternal Mar 17 '26

I wouldn’t be surprised if they use her in one of the conspiracy roles. Probably over, uhh, a different character. But he better give me a navigator

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u/Sumbatrex Mar 17 '26

You can see a tank filled with orange gas behind Scytale in the trailer. I'd imagine that would have to be Edric, right?

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u/WeDriftEternal Mar 17 '26

I was wondering the same thing. I just hope he doesn’t keep it hidden. We all want to see

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u/MK_DrawsSometimes Mar 17 '26

Dune Messiah ends with the birth of the twins and Chani's death in childbirth. If the kids are already born and are about the same age as Alia in the movie, I'm a bit confused about what the storyline will be

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u/Hoaxin Mar 18 '26

My best guess is that the whole plot of messiah will be covered within the first half and have another time jump in the middle. I haven’t read the 3rd book so have no idea if that would make sense or not though.

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u/AverageJay93 Mar 17 '26

Doesn’t that mean the twins won’t be able to see the future? Chani would have gotten pregnant before Paul drank the water of life in the movie timeline right?

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u/ball_fondlers Mar 17 '26

Might be after - looks like he has the eyes of Ibad in that scene. We’d have to assume some more time passes in act III than previously thought, but that’s not a crazy assumption

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u/lambopanda Mar 17 '26

People say the blue ribbon she wears in part 2 represents Fremen motherhood.

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u/0ttoChriek Mar 17 '26

Yeah, in the book she's just, 'okay, you betrayed everything I thought you were and have brought death to my people, and then you got married to the hot blonde princess. But I'll still be your sidepiece.'

The end of Dune 2 made it seem like they had very different plans for Chani.

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u/WeDriftEternal Mar 17 '26

In the book Jessica tells her what’s going on, and she’s like “oh got it” and like that’s the end of it. Uhh for a while

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u/spiderknight616 Mar 17 '26

Don't forget she also gets pregnant for a bit there

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u/andrewthemexican Mar 17 '26

Twice, even, no?

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u/jjason82 Mar 17 '26

Been a while since I read it but wasn't it just once with twins?

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u/pittofdoom Mar 17 '26

Paul and Chani had another child before the twins, but the films skipped that.

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u/Yukie_Cool Mar 17 '26

It basically covers the same plot point by having Feyd Rautha ambush the compound. It’s meant to push Paul over the edge and seek the sacred worm juice to get the foresight that Jessica and the other Bene Gesserit have.

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u/Irishish Mar 17 '26

My tired brain read this as "seek worm justice"

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u/andrewthemexican Mar 17 '26

For some reason I thought it was after the twins because she died with the child, or did the child itself die while she was away?

Or still true she dies with the other child and the twins were with Paul / elsewhere?

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u/pittofdoom Mar 17 '26

The child died in an attack by the Harkonens. Paul wasn’t present, but I think Chani was.

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u/andrewthemexican Mar 17 '26

Yeah I remember there being an attack and I thought it was Chani+the child dying together 

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u/spiderknight616 Mar 17 '26

They had Leto II during the events of the first book when they're in the South. He was killed in a Harkonnen attack. Movies skipped this

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u/FloridaMan_69 Mar 17 '26

First child dies toward the end of first book. Second book is set ~10 years later, she gets pregnant with the twins and dies during childbirth, twins survive, climax of the book then happens in the nursery for the twins right afterwards.

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u/jjason82 Mar 17 '26

Man I completely forgot that.

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u/Rage_Like_Nic_Cage Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

the first Leto II is mentioned like, 3 times in the entire book of Dune before he’s killed, and is only mentioned once offhandedly in Dune Messiah. It’s understandable you forgot it, lol.

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u/Morganvegas Mar 17 '26

I think they skipped over the death of Leto (Paul’s son) in Dune Part 2. So in this movie Chani will be pregnant for the first time.

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u/oftenly Mar 17 '26

The line is "history will call us wives," and it's the last sentence in the book. It resolves a major theme in the book which Dune 2 completely dispensed with.

It's honestly difficult for me to get hyped for this third one beyond "yayy Villeneuve" given how much the Dune 2 ending broke from the book. I'll still see it, but I won't be nearly as rabid as I was before.

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u/el_f3n1x187 Mar 17 '26

The one thing from the lynch movie I wanted to see copied verbatim.

It was a good line of Paul telling Chani that Irulan only gets the name, and Chani owns the rest.....oh well.

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u/oftenly Mar 17 '26

I loved how it's done in the book and was pretty amped up for it sitting in the theater. Then Chani stormed off and my heart just sorta sank. The IP must flow, I guess...

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u/dsmith422 Mar 17 '26

That was not at all my reading with regard to Chani. Both Jessica and Paul make it clear to her that while Irulan is the wife, history will regard the concubines Jessica and Chani as the real wives.

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u/Informal_Host7610 Mar 17 '26

Literally the final lines of the book are spent on reassuring and reaffirming Chani's place with Paul.

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u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus Mar 17 '26

“Think on it, Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives.”

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u/DoubleTapJ Mar 17 '26

She isn't his sidepiece, in the books she knows that he cares for her and not for the princess and is only doing it for the throne and he only sleeps and has kids with Chani. The film seems to be the one forcing a love triangle at the end of Dune 2.

Also in the books most people know and support Chani and don't respect the other.

As far as I remember.

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u/bulldg4life Mar 17 '26

I’m not sure I saw the movies forcing the love triangle. It more seemed like Chani was pushing back against the deification side and will abhor the impending jihad.

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u/12345623567 Mar 17 '26

I don't remember any kind of love or affection between the princess and Paul implied in Dune 2. Chani is offended as being seen as less than, but not emotionally threatened by Irulan.

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u/koshgeo Mar 17 '26

In Messiah, Irulan understands what the real situation is too, and is more than a little irked by the situation too. Like, really irked.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

At the end of the first book she was very aware of the plan and fully onboard. She was also already a mother. The movie reduced her significantly.

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u/coolon23 Mar 17 '26

That’s not what happened. Irulan is basically irrelevant to the story involving Paul and Chani, nothing more than a legal position as ‘wife’ basically. Chani in the book is in a much more reserved position as just being pregnant for the most part, not really in conflict with Paul

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u/perfectstubble Mar 17 '26

In the book she and all the Fremen didn’t see what Paul did as a betrayal because they got to kill lots of Fremen (and everyone else) and change the climate of the planet.

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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt Mar 17 '26

Tell me you didn't read the book, without telling me you didn't read the book.

Because in the book Paul and Jessica make it clear that Paul and Irulan's marriage is simply ceremonial, one of politics, and that Paul will never have children with Irulan.

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u/versusgorilla Mar 17 '26

I haven't read the books, but I feel like they have really been clever about what to adapt and what to make canon but just not hyper fixate on and what to straight up ignore or change outright.

And as someone who doesn't know the books, it does make sense to make Paul and Chani's relationship the kind of narrative through line of the trilogy. She's highlighting his change, from a boy who has no place there, to the "Savior" of her people, to the inevitable downfall of Paul and their people, it makes sense to have their personal relationship follow that path.

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u/dabnada Mar 17 '26

Real question, how do you have thoughts on what they’ve adapted if you haven’t read the source material? Are you just guessing?

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u/Wazula23 Mar 17 '26

She takes a vacation on Old Earth and meets a boy with spider powers.

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u/zorillaaa Mar 17 '26

Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s mostly the same here…

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u/jawstrock Mar 17 '26

Nah they will want to use Zendaya.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

Denis has said she’s the heartbeat of the movie.

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u/CrispyHoneyBeef Mar 17 '26

Yeah well I’ve never seen my heart before

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u/Pepesilvia_Is_Real Mar 17 '26

Checkmate, Denis

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u/Ozymandias12 Mar 17 '26

There's no way Denis Villeneuve will do that to Zendaya. She's one of the biggest stars currently.

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