New review critical of DUNE: PART TWO based on the depiction of Chani

[Ryujin]

Paul, having the equivalent of a Sixth Sense for danger.

The universe sending him dire warnings of possible future catastrophes.

Paul - "I will walk this path."

 

[LordBP]

I see a lot of emphasis online on Paul not being a true hero, being motivated by revenge, being an outsider, etc. and it seems that these are presented as the root cause for the Jihad and 60+ billions dead, and everything that follows, but if Paul had been the real Fremen messiah, these would not have happened. I got the impression this is Villeneuve's opinion as well.

I believe the books dived more into the reason for the Jihad more than the movie.

If my memory is correct, then all other paths resulted in trillions of deaths or the entire extermination of the human race.

The weight of that golden path was too much for him in later books and his son had to take up the task to set humanity on the path and see it completed.

 

[gban007]

I believe the books dived more into the reason for the Jihad more than the movie.

If my memory is correct, then all other paths resulted in trillions of deaths or the entire extermination of the human race.

The weight of that golden path was too much for him in later books and his son had to take up the task to set humanity on the path and see it completed.

This is where IMHO Herbert muddies his own waters. Dune then Dune Messiah were looking to show the dangers of putting trust in / following heroes, but then later books suggest Paul and Leto were right to do what they did, and humankind would have lost a lot of lives or gone extinct if they hadn't. Thus showing the Fremen etc were right to follow Paul....
I think part of problem is the later books were serving to give other philosophical views (problems of prescience, and prescience traps) that used existing works to build off of, but lead to a bit of undermining of the initial message.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The set up seems to be that if Paul didn't accept the role of messiah, then it would go to Feyd-Rautha, and all the bad stuff would happen anyway. But the damage seems to have been done way back, when humans first started messing with precognition to create their chosen future.

I think Villeneuve would be quite justified in spinning things differently in the third film though.

 

[briggart]

This is where IMHO Herbert muddies his own waters. Dune then Dune Messiah were looking to show the dangers of putting trust in / following heroes, but then later books suggest Paul and Leto were right to do what they did, and humankind would have lost a lot of lives or gone extinct if they hadn't. Thus showing the Fremen etc were right to follow Paul....
I think part of problem is the later books were serving to give other philosophical views (problems of prescience, and prescience traps) that used existing works to build off of, but lead to a bit of undermining of the initial message.

I don't think that the two aspects are necessarily in contradiction. The end goal of Paul/Leto was to ensure humanity would become too disperse, diverse, and immune to prescience so it will never risk total extinction. As things stood at the beginning of Dune, the Golden Path had to go through the Jihad, but from Leto message to Odrade I got the impression that that was not a fundamental part. He explains that while the BG goal was humanity preservation, their breeding program was a mistake and they lucked out with Jessica deciding to not follow her orders, which allowed humanity to go back to the Golden Path.

The way I think about it, the Jihad is the equivalent of cutting off a limb to prevent gangrene from spreading to the whole body. It would have been better to address the infection before it got to that level, but since that was not done (i.e., Arrakis environment shaped the Fremen into harsh people, and they were further pushed to the extreme by both BG and the Keyneses taking advantage of Fremen religion and myths for their own goals) now we are left with only one option.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I suggest Small Gods (Pratchett) as a counter-narrative, with a chosen one who embraces the role to set the people on a peaceful path.