Dune: Part Two Fixes Something That Denis Villeneuve Disliked About The Novel
Few live-action translations, particularly one that was commonly accepted to be "unfilmable" for so many years (even despite — or maybe because of — a certain David Lynch movie), have received as much scrutiny as 2021's "Dune." Director Denis Villeneuve did the impossible and delivered a faithful translation of author Frank Herbert's watershed sci-fi/fantasy novel while somehow also making it easily digestible to the masses. Some killjoys might argue that maybe it was a little too faithful, in fact, but it clearly got the job done for most, and now expectations for the upcoming sequel are at a fever pitch. So, what does Villeneuve have up his sleeves for an encore performance? Well, even he has some quibbles about the book that he'd love to improve upon this time around.
In an interview with Total Film magazine, the topic of both Zendaya and Rebecca Ferguson's roles as Chani and Lady Jessica Atreides, respectively, came up and Villeneuve addressed his slightly different approach for two of the epic's most important women in "Part Two." First of all, adapting the second half of the book meant writing one particular wrong he noticed with Paul Atreides' mother. According to Villeneuve:
"Strangely, Jessica's more in the background in the second part [of the novel] — I thought that was not proper. She's still Lady Jessica, the main architect of the story. I thought that was a very powerful idea that was not sustained in the book. I made sure that she has the character presence in the second part."
We won't spoil anything here, but book readers know one of Jessica's biggest moments is coming up in "Part Two." (Elsewhere in the Total Film issue, which you can buy here, Ferguson calls this "one of my favorite scenes.") Expect big things for Chani, too.
Expanding from the page to the screen
In terms of material, Paul Atreides' (Timothée Chalamet) Fremen lover Chani factors into the plot much more in the second half of the book, a template that "Dune: Part Two" is set to follow to a T. But when we return to Zendaya in the sequel, out in the desert of Arrakis, longtime fans will quickly realize that her motivation and sense of agency are much more defined than they ever were in the original book. Admittedly, this was previously teased in various trailers, but the film's director and cast alike expand on this change much more in Total Film magazine's new cover story. For his part, Denis Villeneuve goes so far as to say that, "As the movie progresses, there's a shift in the main character, and Chani becomes my reference as a point of view." Those are strong words, which Zendaya completely backs up. According to the actor:
"In the book, Chani meets Paul and is like, 'Alright, this is the guy. I support you.' Whereas in our film, in no way does she bend how she feels. She's strong in her convictions. Even when she's falling in love, she still doesn't like what [Paul] represents."
What her young lover represents is, well, troubling, to say the least. Those paying attention should've found something off-putting about Paul's visions of the future revealed towards the end of "Dune," which hinted toward a calamitous war — with Paul as its figurehead of zealotry. Although this is taken much further in the novel "Dune: Messiah," the early seeds of this cautionary tale can already be seen in the first movie and, by all accounts, even more in the second film.
"Dune: Part Two" will ride a sandworm into theaters on March 1, 2024.