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Message: <blockquote data-quote="briggart" data-source="post: 9491858" data-attributes="member: 6805135">([USER=7043470]@The Soloist[/USER] I'm quoting your post due to DV interview clearly stating the point I wanted to address, but this is a general reply to the topic, I don't mean to drag you back in the thread.) I like Dune: Part Two as a sci-fi movie, but IMO it doesn't do a good job at expressing Herbert's view, but for different reasons than the OP.I think that focusing on Paul not being the fairytale hero is a case of looking at the finger rather than the moon. Paul's characters and motivations are mostly irrelevant to Herbert's point that there is a sort of innate tendency in society to create/look for messiahs/heroes/charismatic leaders to follow blindly. Inevitably, around these figures a structure of power will arise that is seen as an extension of the hero, and therefore not to be questioned either. But these kind of structures attract pathological peoples, and inevitably turn bad, regardless of the virtues or failures of the originating figure.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.IMO that's not a faithful characterization of Herbert's belief. I don't think that Dune Messiah point was "you missed Paul was actually a bad person", rather "you missed that the Fremen being willing to blindly follow a leader is a bad thing".  Herbert explicitly said* the people followed Paul:This sounds like the description of a good guy trust in a situation in which there are no good choices, not of an antihero on his way to villainy. Herbert compared Paul to JFK, which he thought was a "great guy", but at the same time was the "most dangerous president" because people did not question him.Some of changes DV introduced in Part Two seem to me mostly intended to highlight that Paul's not the classical hero, which is fine in itself, but overall they end up muddling Herbert's actual and deeper point.* Full interview: [MEDIA=youtube]id=AT2R9L_r4oM;list=PLg_GJOOtYZlHk5eETJP6LZdKv1kYI-9Fb[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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