DUNE Movie: Thoughts, Opinions, and Impressions

[DrunkonDuty]

I found the manner in which the movie addresses the white messiah trope to be rather limp. I'll give them points for trying. Well, one point. Cos, they really didn't try very hard.

 

[briggart]

I'm not sure by what you mean by resolve the white savior issue. Paul is meant to be a prototypical white savior and it's supposed to make us uncomfortable. Do you mean they did not address it on screen enough or cast him in too heroic a light?

Paul is meant to be a hero, a messiah, and Herbert’s point was that is dangerous to blindly follow leaders. Skin color has nothing to do with it given that, on one side, the few physical descriptions of the Atreides in the book point to them not being white, on the other, Liet is another messianic figure who’s manipulating the Fremen for his own reasons, despite being half fremen himself.

Focusing on (the perceived) skin color of Paul seems to me that is missing the deeper points about the dangers of uncritically following a leader/ideology/religion.

 

[pukunui]

Paul is meant to be a hero, a messiah, and Herbert’s point was that is dangerous to blindly follow leaders. Skin color has nothing to do with it given that, on one side, the few physical descriptions of the Atreides in the book point to them not being white, on the other, Liet is another messianic figure who’s manipulating the Fremen for his own reasons, despite being half fremen himself.

Focusing on (the perceived) skin color of Paul seems to me that is missing the deeper points about the dangers of uncritically following a leader/ideology/religion.

As you say, it’s not as much an issue in the book. It is an issue that was introduced in the first movie when they cast a white guy as Paul and then made all the Fremen people of color.

One thing I think they kind of messed up in the movie was the revelation of Jessica being Baron Harkonnen's daughter. In the 80s movie, the Harkonnens all have red hair ... just like Jessica. In these movies, the Harkonnens get rid of all their body hair and tend to have prominent brows and the like. Jessica doesn't look anything like them. Neither does Paul. I suppose you could say it has something to do with Bene Gesserit DNA manipulation (if they can choose the baby's sex, maybe they can also manipulate other gene factors). I just liked that in the 80s movie, the red hair was essentially a clue.

Another thought: while I liked that they made House Atreides a mix of cultures (a Greek name, Scottish bagpipes, Spanish bull-fighting, etc), I'm not sure how I feel about making the Fremen a mix of POC. Yes, it's good that they're not all Middle Eastern as is heavily implied in the books, but I would also think that in 8000 years, an isolated people like the Fremen would end up looking ambiguously ethnic rather than retaining distinct Hispanic, African, and Middle Eastern groupings.