DrunkonDuty
he/him
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.
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.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?
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.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.