this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Interesting - this is the first time I have seem someone (implicitly) dislike Villeneuve's version (though to be fair, I have not closely followed the discourse around it). DO you have additional grievances, beyond the actors?
I dislike them alright, lol. They're beautiful but soulless, or at least with a different soul than that of Dune. Why? Because in part 1 they didn't give us Chani, who is supposed to be an extremely mature, competent and supportive young leader of her tribe and an understandably attractive opposite sex PEER to Paul, the boy-princeling-warrior existentialist prophet (and with increased cognitive abilities as well cause he's a Mentat), but instead we got an angsty, annoying, immature, intolerable and unlovable New Yorker who was just called Chani. And in part 2 they make her part of some sort of anti-religious rebellion? It's all BS and basically dismantles the main reason for why Paul does stuff to begin with (and why the story happens!): he's in love with someone so great he's willing to do anything to keep her alive and have her for as long as possible. Major plot points in both Dune and Messiah revolve around doing things "for the greater good" or for his own "selfish" reason of having the love of his life with him, after all. Love is basically the reason everything happens, from Jessica giving Leto a boy to Leto II's plan and "planned" downfall, and there's no love in Chani nor there could be love for her from someone as supernaturally superior and insightful as Paul. And to be fair it could've been Zendaya (idk if she's ever portrayed anyone close to Chani though), but the way they wrote her character is just horrible and goes against the basic "building blocks" of the Dune series.
Another reason I dislike the movies is the emphasis on long shots with no dialogue when Dune is all thoughts and dialogue, the emphasis on superficiality and silence when Dune is full of analysis and words. A whole genocide takes place and it's described in like 3 lines. Paul's firstborn dies and it's like one line? But here the fights, the scenery, the ACTS, all of it is prioritized, when Dune prioritizes the analysis. No wonder they couldn't fit in major scenes from the book that would've tied things together (like the "family dinner" scene, for example) and given greater meaning and impact to the conspiracy!
It's a very "fly in the ointment" kind of situation. ๐