Dune: Part Two
If you haven't read Frank Herbert's first Dune book or seen director Dennis Villeneuve's 2021 movie you may want to skip this review. Or skip this movie altogether.
Finally saw Dune: Part Two in the theater over the weekend and it has prompted me to write this review.
First let me say that I'm a huge fan of Frank Hebert's first novel in the series and was also a fan of David Lynch's 1984 film version of Dune. I've read the first book too many times to keep track but have never even started the subsequent Frank Herbert Dune novels. Perhaps instinctively I knew that the actual history is infinitely more interesting than any fictional world trying to fit that fabric of that history ever could be.
Have always had a sniff of the Islamic names and language and Dune is an actual desert planet but it was The Rest is History's Romans in Space episode that set off the bells that of course Dune is based loosely on the history of Muhammad. (Have been a subscriber and avid listener to that podcast since Dan Carlin alerted people to their existence.) Dune: Part Two is overtly Islamic. If you are evenly mildly Islamophobic in this post 9/11 world - probably best to avoid the film in the first place.
I'm not Islamophobic but I don't react well generally when directors take it on themselves to change books I love. Dennis Villeneuve does that wholesale here. Gone is Janis' wife and children and the tribe's rule for taking ownership of the woman and children of those of the tribe you have killed in combat. This was not how the 1984 movie treated the subject. In was Villeneuve's expanded role for the Beast Rabban (maybe because he like Dave Bautista so much). Out was the movie ending where the book did - with Paul defeating the Emperor and taking control of Arrakis. David Lynch's movie followed this script but Dune: Part Two is clearly meant for a Dune: Part Three and maybe more. No jihad was part of the end of the book but it was part of the movie. Many other changes and omissions were also made.
Maybe that is why I felt compelled to write this review and probably why I’ll skip any second viewing. The close to 3 hour length and the monetary price for Dune: Part Two just isn’t worth it. Do yourself a favor and buy a used copy of the original Dune book. You’ll literally be richer for it.