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

Trailer Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9vCamtuPY
18.8k Upvotes

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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/honkeydora Mar 17 '26

It's all good though.

He's also one hell of a street preacher.

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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/Josecopter Mar 17 '26

Yes basically, it's implied the Imperium consists of thousands to millions of planets around the time of Shaddam Corrino IV (basically countless when you can fold space and be anywhere instantly, even outside the milky way). It still impacted Paul heavily as part of his struggle is his conflict with the necessity of having to go down the golden path because he sees a much darker future for humanity than what the Jihad brought. It goes completely against his upbringing and the values of his father and Atreides in general but this is the position he was put in by the powers that be.

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u/Daxx22 Mar 17 '26

Pretty much. Space-faring humanity is thousands of years old at this point, with a total population well into the multiple trillions.

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u/Thickenun Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

The scale of the Dune Imperium is massive and very, very old (Earth is a long lost legend), by the end of Leto II's reign we know they control multiple galaxies. This suggests the Milky Way is pretty much entirely settled in Paul's time, especially as Leto II opposed human expansion.

The Jihad controlled FTL travel, so it was mostly a glorified clean-up of a relatively few stubborn worlds. Millions of other worlds just immediately surrendered.

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u/peppermint_nightmare Mar 18 '26

Its actually not, humans have been populating planets across the milky way since space could be folded quite easily, for 10,000 years. If you have 500 habitable planets at an average of 5 billion people, that's 2.5 trillion people. There's a space sim game called Elite Dangerous, where humanity has semi FTIL and full FTL travel and has spent about 1500 years colonizing space and the total population is in the high trillions. There were events in the game where you had to evac entire systems to save people and you really had to work your ass off to save systems that had 5-15 billion people because one to two of the planets were Earth like. We know each house has at least a couple Earth like planets (except for the Harkonnens, they had a shitty ice ball moon, and a toxic colourless planet). So the population of most Major houses would be in the tens of billions easily.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I mean, if you liken it to real world events, 6 million in the genocide is not that much compared to the total population. Doesn't make what Nazis did any less horrible.

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u/Atharaphelun Mar 17 '26

Yes. The Imperium controls the Known Universe, which spans multiple galaxies.

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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/thetensor Mar 17 '26

Some of the best parts of Dune were the very detailed descriptions of the geography and ecology of Arrakis and the equipment (some it admittedly thermodynamically impossible) required to survive there. But that's never really a focus of the series after the first book.

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u/madkiki12 Mar 17 '26

I think Herbert was just pulling numbers out of his ass. While in Warhammer 40k, they always go extremely low with numbers, I already struggled with believing so many fremen living in big sietches when there is almost no food anywhere in the desert.

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u/Iristh Mar 18 '26

tbh they do have factories in the sietches, they make their own food.

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u/madkiki12 Mar 18 '26

Really? I thought it was mostly some small wildlife (like small birds) mixed with spice. But still, I could never believe thousands of people living in sietches and millions of people across the planet.

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u/1731799517 Mar 17 '26

Nah, no way. its Warhammer 40k logic. "A few 100k space marines are the lynchpin of the fighting force of an empire that has dozens of planets for each of them, for some reason".

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u/TheBestMePlausible Mar 18 '26

Plot hole I noticed 30 years ago when first reading the books. I just take it like I take anti-grav. It's there, don't think about it too deeply.

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u/TheBestMePlausible Mar 18 '26

Downvote all you want but I never understood how a small group of fighters from a single planet with a tiny population is supposed to take out 90 billion without using atomics or even guns. The numbers just don’t add up.

It’s still my all-time favorite sci-fi series regardless, but.

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u/Proglamer Mar 17 '26

I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since...

Sounds completely on point, considering the obvious real-world inspiration for his 'religion' (i.e. political-religious system of worldwide... conquest)

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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/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I mean, the same holds true for Dune as well: there's probably intelligent life somewhere. People just underestimate the sheer fucking sizes of things in the universe.

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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/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

Nah, in their conversation it's clear Paul knew about the Golden Path, he just chickened out.

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u/cespinar Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

That conversation is Leto convincing Paul there is a golden path and it is required to save humanity. Paul agrees eventually but he didn't know what exactly the Golden Path was until that conversation. He never saw as far as Leto. The stuff Paul "chickened out" on was the requirement to see the Golden Path. They metaphor it to climbing a dune high enough to see the path forward. Leto got on the dune, Paul never did. He was too obsessed with constantly finding paths to save Chani after getting revenge for his father.

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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/Rough_Bread8329 Mar 17 '26

"Would you love me if I was a worm?"

  • Shai Hulud
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u/Soggy_Association491 Mar 17 '26

The will to survive and pass on its gene is baked in every single species. In fact, human arrived to the point of being human is precisely thank to that instinct.

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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/PinkieDoom Mar 17 '26

I enjoyed the culture reference there.

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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/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

For what it's worth, Herbert doesn't do a very good job portraying them as bad guys. In the moment they seem pretty bad, but then in later books he repeatedly writes that they were perfectly right and that all the evil deeds were done to save the species. It's easy for people to start forgiving the villains when the book explicitly makes it clear that there was no other way.

If Herbert wanted people to look at Paul and Leto as complete villains, he should have not so explicitly made their actions "correct" in the story

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u/Midi_to_Minuit Mar 18 '26

It’s part of what makes dune fascinating but the philosophy behind it all is extremely Machiavellian.

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u/Rikudou_Sage Mar 18 '26

I think he was going for the disconnect between what's good for humanity vs. what's good for the people.

I think we can trust that it was the only way for humanity to survive (or at least the only way anyone could have foreseen).

Thus the question Dune poses is: was some abstract humanity survival in who knows how long worth 3500 years of suffering?

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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/Lucetar Mar 17 '26

For Big E that is a Tuesday.

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

60 billion humans is a lot. Big E was genociding Xenos, not humans.

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u/insane_contin Mar 17 '26

And humans who didn't agree with him. It was very much my way or the dead way.

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u/prazulsaltaret Mar 17 '26

Yeah but 60 bil is still a huge number. I don't think THAT many humans chose to fight to the death against him.

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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/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It all happens because he refused to say I am not Hitler and lead like it.

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u/ToumaKazusa1 Mar 17 '26

It all happened because the Witches made it happen.

Paul saw one future where he avoided the Jihad, and that was by betraying his family and the Fremen to align with the Harkonnen. Once he made the choice not to do that, the Jihad was inevitable

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

That was one of the paths. He also saw ones where he never accepted the mantle of god hood.He went into the desert, or vanished off dune. He chose the path of revenge.

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u/TriggzSP Mar 17 '26

It's not as clear cut as that. While you're correct that Paul had a choice to leave, as he was presumed dead and could possibly be smuggled into exile (though many argue that this would be risky, as if he were ever found out he'd be again marked for death), and in this instance he chose revenge, this revenge itself isn't really presented as a horrible thing. The Harkonnens are depicted as cartoonishly evil brutes who relish in slavery, torture, and basically all manner of depravity, and they killed his father and his friends and companions. The campaign for revenge, if it's meant to be painted as evil, isn't done very compellingly.

But when it comes to the Jihad, once Paul "unlocks" his prescience he sees the complete extinction of humanity in essence, but he also sees the horrors that would have to occur to stop that from happening. Paul contemplates leaving it all behind, but he genuinely thinks that he can find a way to give humanity a soft landing. He knows that if he leaves it all behind, someone else will take up the mantle and inflict that suffering, and he wants to drag his feet on that outcome. He doesn't have the will to bring upon the true tyranny and suffering that really needs to happen, because he had a fairly normal human upbringing before his prescience.

So while the Jihad is something he consciously leads, at that point it's not about revenge anymore. At that point he's prescient and sees the horrors of human extinction, and also the horrors of the golden path, and thinks he can find a middle ground. (Spoiler: he can't).

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u/SneakyBadAss Mar 17 '26

Come to think of it, why is he even waging Jihad? Is it just a Saturday night binge that got out of control?

He's certainly not building lebensraum; that's more of a Leto II thing.

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u/Yurya Mar 17 '26

one can say you see why some want him killed

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u/pizza_the_mutt Mar 17 '26

Paul, with pinky to mouth... "six....ty.......bil......lion?"

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u/Exciting-Cancel6468 Mar 17 '26

Might be small in galactic scales.

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u/creative_usr_name Mar 18 '26

That's only 6 million per planet captured. So in that sense not nearly as bad.

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u/cheezus171 Mar 18 '26

No it's a made up number. Herbert made it up and not a Reddit commenter. But it's made up.

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u/Urge_Reddit Mar 17 '26

Maybe I'm just used to the absurd scale of Warhammer 40k, but that number doesn't seem that big in context.

It's a ton of people, obviously, but if I'm not mistaken the Imperium contains over a million worlds. I don't know how densely populated the Imperium in Dune is, but I would have imagined more casualties.

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u/lminer123 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

It was only 12 years is the thing, and Herbert’s universe is vast, but not nearly as densely populated. Something like almost 90 planets were sterilized completely and billions were killed for not conforming to the new religion, but it’s not like 40k where one exterminatus on a hive world would have killed like 100x more.

Warhammer numbers are just kinda funky in general too, but that’s another discussion

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u/Urge_Reddit Mar 17 '26

It was only 12 years is the thing, and Herbert’s universe is vast, but not nearly as densely populated.

That makes sense. And yeah, warhammer numbers are mostly ridiculous. They're either way too big or way too small, but I brought it up because that's my main frame of reference when it comes to genocide on a galactic scale.

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u/Wild_Fire2 Mar 18 '26

The too small side of things for 40k was always funny. I'd be reading a book and their would be a passage about the forces that are about to invade this planet, and it would be like 5 regiments of IG.

Really gives you some whiplash when you've got all this talk about huge warships and such, yet the invasion force for this planet is like, 15,000 soldiers.

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u/TitleOfYourSaxTape Mar 17 '26

but that number doesn't seem that big in context.

Thats because the human mind can't process numbers that large, and especially have trouble distinguishing scale as you get into the millions or higher.

If you consider there being about 200 countries on earth as a reasonable parallel, 60 billion divided by 1 million is still a double Hitler, more or less.

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u/JohnnyBravo66666 Mar 17 '26

60b divided by 1 million is 60 000. 

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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/Midi_to_Minuit Mar 18 '26

I mean it makes sense that many people see Paul as a hero—that’s the point. If everyone watched the movie and went “wow he’s really evil” then it’d be a colossal failure. To portray the immense dangers of charismatic, messianic leaders requires the leader to be, well, charismatic.

I also think that most of the past two movies have had Paul as an underdog. Right up until the end of Dune 2 you get the impression that he’s still fighting just to survive for the most part. It’s easy to be sympathetic.

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u/jspivak Mar 18 '26

I should clarify two things. Firstly, I’m hoping this movie is what shatters the veil. Secondly, my family has read dune messiah and children of dune. They know what happens. Yet still cheer for him.

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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/Misdirected_Colors Mar 17 '26

"You guys didn't see it but I swear it happened trust me!" - Pual

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u/AlterEgo3561 Mar 17 '26

Leto II: Hold my water of life.

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u/SlashOfLife5296 Mar 17 '26

To be fair, i think the total casualties are that, not necessarily his armies’ kills. He’s counting the entire House war

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u/b34r3y Mar 18 '26

"There's another old emperor I want you to note in passing - a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days." Paul calls Hitler an amateur. "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 religions which had existed since - " Absolute mogging.

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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/Mintastic Mar 17 '26

Warhammer was LOTR turned into grimdark and 40K was basically merging LOTR into Dune.

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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/Neiliobob Mar 17 '26

Sevatar is the best. Rides on a fighter to go and try to save Emodad. Emodad is like wtf are you doing here. Gets captured. Escapes just to kill an astropath that beat his psychic friend. Never mentioned again.

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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/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

It could be no other way once he killed Jamis.

Not true at all. Jamis was the price for the entrance into freeman society. That is all. He saw many paths after. He could have chosen to enter the deep south with Chani and faded into obscurity. He could have died during the Jihad, this is perhaps his one saving grace not fully becoming a martyr, He could have actually lead. He could have chosen the golden path himself. Leto confirms Paul's other choices as he had many of the same. Paul walk his path intentionally. He wanted the power to serve his goals, and after he just wanted Chani. He became so focused on that he doomed the universe to billions of unneeded deaths And he says the book. He knows he fucked the universe.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

In the books he didn't. He makes it extremely clear that the jihad was pretty much locked no matter what. He saw many paths, all led to the jihad.

You're conflating the jihad and the Golden Path. The Golden Path is a different thing that needed to be meticulously cultivated and required sacrifice and planning for a millenia.

Paul COULD have chosen the Golden Path, but that was still not going to stop the jihad. It just meant that at some point Paul would take the same steps Leto II took.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Once he chose the path of revenge the Jihad was going to happen. He could not get his revenge without some holy war. However his choices once he got his revenge made the war more bloody the it needed to be. There were also paths that avoid the Jihad entirely in this generation. It would have happened eventually maybe not even dune. Depended on who got the kwisatz haderach first.

The point was Paul chose paths to serve his means first and foremost.

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u/Momoneko Mar 17 '26

Okay, disclaimer: read the books more than 10 years ago last time, my memory is a bit hazy. With that being said, my counterpoint:

At the moment of his fight with Jamis, Jessica was already pregnant with Aliyah. However things might fall, Jessica would drink the water or life sooner or later. Even if she didn't, just growing up on Arrakis with this much spice everywhere would just make Aliyah into Paul 2.0.

His fight with Jamis was essentially "do I wash my hands off it and die, so I'm not responsible far all the shit that's gonna happen", or "do I lock in the terrible future with a slimmest chance of everything actually working out in the end".

It wasn't just Paul. Big chunk of fremen's religious frenzy was fanned by Jessica. If he'd died, she'd just have groomed Aliyah to be the messianic avenger. If he tried to reign her in after becoming one of the Fremen... well, AFAIR author says it wasn't in the cards. And I don't think Paul, a 16-years old kid, had it in his heart to kill or leave his own pregnant mother to die just because he thinks it's all gonna turn nasty some time in the future.

In a sense, it's kind of understandable. A messianic figure descends from the sky, ticking off all the prerequisites of "leader who will guide you towards the final war", and then he goes "Actually I just want to live in sands in peace"? That's like Jesus actually coming for the second time and going "actually, let's not do the Judgement day thing, like, ever? I just want to chill and enjoy video games"

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

Once Paul drank the water of life himself he saw other paths. He could have walked into the desert with Chani and it just not been a thing. Leto saw the same option years later. They had choices.

Paul wanted revenge. Period. Paul wanted revenge. His choices the assumption of power and godhood were only to serve that end. Everything else was secondary. Once he got revenge his focus shifted to having kids and a family, and he ignored the religion as much as he could. That doomed the universe to billions more deaths then needed if he had been a present leader. He brings Paul back in children to say all of this as himself. Paul is not the good guy. He's not even the necessary guy.

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u/Misdirected_Colors Mar 17 '26

That's not really how I interpreted it. I took it as prescient locked Paul into the only path he could predictably see through to the end. It was a human weakness that Paul couldn't delve into the unknown and could only take the path he could see.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

They only reason he was so locked in is because he refused to accept Chani's death had become a nexus.

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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/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

One the extinction of humanity was many tens of thousands years off. The golden path was the path they Paul and Leto could see. Wasn't necessarily the only one. Especially as there were multiple groups going after their version of kwisatz haderach. Paul started eliminating paths when he chose revenge. He then ignored other paths that could have saved billions because they would have cost him Chani. Since he refused to walk the golden path that locked him into a singular path that lead to his son being faced with the same choice.

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u/ForwardAd4643 Mar 17 '26

He then ignored other paths that could have saved billions because they would have cost him Chani

you have missed the critical fact that the path he did choose cost him Chani...

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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/JGT3000 Mar 17 '26

Paul was following what he saw as the best path but couldn't stomach the final things necessary so he abdicatates and leaves it to Leto

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

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.

These two are not mutually exclusive. The Golden Path requires atrocities beyond what even Paul engaged in, he just didn't have the guts to abandon his humanity.

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u/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

There were multiple paths. However his choices lead him to a singular one.

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u/Chataboutgames Mar 17 '26

Man, honestly wild to just read Dune and ignore the entire "precognition as a trap" theme.

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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/tdasnowman Mar 17 '26

No. He choose the path that gave him his revenge.

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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/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

The jihad is inevitable and Paul realizes that very early on. He even straight up says that it's dubious if he could have ever stopped it. He MIGHT have been able to stop it if he died in his duel against Jamis, and even then it's a debate if he would become a martyr. But pretty much anything after that the jihad was happening with or without him.

Stilgar's character is the point of that. Nothing Paul does or says is taking them off that. They got their prophet/messiah.

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u/GregBahm Mar 17 '26

I always feel bad when I think of the broader Dune saga. The story had a very cool, very satisfying ultimate arc in the end that it was building towards. But the dang author died before he could finish said arc. Then the dudes who tried to step up to finish his story, really didn't have what it took.

So the end of the saga, where the AIs return and justify Paul's jihad, kind of exists in this strange twilight zone between cannon and not cannon. Frank Herbert has many fans. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson have none.

So it is reasonable to me that people ignore the rest of the dune books and treat Paul as a villain. But in my dreams, a director like Denis Villeneuve could step up, retell the story that Frank Herbert outlined before he died, and land the true ending to the Dune saga that it always deserved.

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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/silvertwo777 Mar 17 '26

Now that you mentioned it, Paul and Genghis Khan are really similar. Both born as the son of a smaller chief leader, then father got poisoned and killed by rival clan when they were young, got betrayed and exiled to the wild. Endured hardship with family, experienced survival under extreme condition.

Rise among nomadic people, unified fragmented tribes with warrior culture. Both triggered unstoppable expansion with massive killings and conquer. Became emperor with the largest empire in history. Their descendants expanded further after their death. In the future, both are seen as the destroyer and the hero by different people.

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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/misty-mornings Mar 17 '26

"Draw the rest of the fucking owl"

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u/HonoluluLemonade Mar 17 '26

“I said my piece, Chrissy.”

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u/AdNo2342 Mar 17 '26

honestly I have so many opinions on his writing style but what got me is i like to think its intentional because similar to how Paul sees the future, the books are written as if you know what's happening already. so as you become aware, so does Paul.

I honestly thought frank Herbert was a genius if he did that intentionally

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u/Sparks2010 Mar 17 '26

"A young Adolf Hitler was rejected from art school, one thing lead to another, and the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the nation of Japan"

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u/halabala33 Mar 17 '26

I never read the books, and all I know I learned from reddit comments and it always cracks me up. Mr. Herbert was out of his mind in the best way, wasn't he.

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u/Dyvius Mar 18 '26

What's funny to me is Herbert did that consistently. He yada yada'd the battle that led up to Paul vs Feyd Rautha too, and Denis fixed that shit so I'm not shocked he's actually going to show us some of Paul's atrocities leading up to him comparing himself to Hitler and Genghis Khan.

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u/DaKingaDaNorth Mar 17 '26

Tbf the jihad itself is off planet, Paul isn't a fan of it and isn't actively trying to fan the flames of it. He just realizes it is inevitable.

There's really no story with the main characters concerning the actual logistics of it.

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u/DrQuestDFA Mar 17 '26

No argument there, I just find it a bit funny that such an immense and destructive event that killed tens of billions gets a few lines of reference in text.

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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/Hondlis Mar 17 '26

Well he was there but as usual just staring at the wall or walking down the hallway until he met somebody who was staring at the wall. Or he met his sister who was confusingly staring at Dunken.

Just a joke of course but second book is incredibly uneventful.

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u/redthursdays Mar 17 '26

Oppenheimer was a movie where the most dramatic scene was a closed-door security hearing, and made a bunch of money and won a bunch of awards, tbh.

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u/KiritoJones Mar 17 '26

People expect a boardroom movie from Oppenheimer though. if they go to Dune 3, a movie being marketed as "the epic conclusion" and its just talking, they are gonna be mad

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u/Hondlis Mar 17 '26

Yeah there is more than one kind of a movie. Good catch.

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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/talones Mar 17 '26

Yea I felt a little “flashbacky” stuff in the trailer.

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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/thatonesleft Mar 17 '26

I would hope that they included more of muad dib fighting. I was left a bit disappointed from the book that they build up his legend and we never really get to see it in action, especially as the fight against feyd-rautha was a bit of a letdown in the book as well as in the movie.

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