Dune: Part 2 is a 2024 epic science fiction film directed and written by Denis Villeneuve based on the seminal novel by Frank Herbert.

You can read my review of Dune Part 1 here, and my review of the book Dune here.

To summarize my thoughts, I thought the book Dune was fascinating and high quality, but not very compelling for me personally. Dune plays out like a chess game, pieces moving across the board, a pawn suddenly becoming a queen when it makes it across the board. If you’re into the game, you’ll be holding your breath the whole time. However, if you enjoy games with more than pieces on the board, it might not be for you.

I found Dune: Part 1 to be majorly disappointing. Yes, it was a beautiful movie, but it failed to bring the personality that the book had to life. Most characters had one scene, maybe two, and then they do a thing, and then the movie ends. It failed to deal with the book’s complicated themes, grand worldbuilding, and strongly historical politicking. It was a very thin movie with a lot of cool special effects and landscape shots.

Is Dune: Part 2 any better? Does it translate the book better to screen? Is it worth the time to slog through Dune: Part 1?

I am shocked to say this, but actually… yes.

Dune: Part 2 is a major improvement on its predecessor, both in an adaption of the themes (not necessarily of the events) of its source material and in its structure as a film.

A Quick Summary

In Dune: Part 1, the Emperor bestows the extremely important planet of Arrakis on House Atreides. Arrakis is a desert planet. In its sand is found the Spice, a compound making you capable of slightly seeing the future. The natives, the desert dwelling Fremen, are in a tense relationship with their lords. The previous lords, the rival Harkonnens, were butchers. Duke Leto Atreides intends to be different.

However, it was all a setup from the Emperor, who gave his troops in support of the Harkonnens exterminating the Atreides. Only Duke Leto’s son Paul, with his mother Jessica, escape. As they flee with some Fremen, they manage to gain their trust through combat and begin to be welcomed into their tribe.

In Part 2, Jessica and Paul enter into the religion of the Fremen. Paul starts fulfilling prophecies of the native religion. However, that religion was actually planted thousands of years ago by Jessica’s faction of secret religious agents, the Bene Gessarit. Jessica becomes the Fremen’s Reverend Mother, a kind of prophet-of-the-past of their religion, even though she is pregnant, giving her and her fetus supernatural powers. As Paul tries to become a true Fremen, he starts fulfilling more prophecies, and the Fremen, especially Stilgar, start to worship him. Paul falls in love with Fremen Chani, who aids him in his transition to Fremen but hates the godhood that is being given to her lover.

Meanwhile, the Harkonnens now rule Arrakis again. Their Baron, Vladimir, grooms his nephew Feyd Rautha for leadership even while Feyd’s brother makes a mess of Arrakis. The Emperor hopes his scheme to overthrow the Atreides isn’t found out, while his daughter Irulan works with the Bene Gessarit to integrate Feyd Rautha into the prophecies instead of Paul.

Who will win in the battle of Fremen vs Harkonnen? Will Paul give into his visions of the future, including the Genocide that he foresees? Who will come out on top? I won’t spoil everything. But I will say: this is a very interesting adaption of the source material.

An Interesting Adaption

This movie thrives where the first failed. Why? I think it’s because while the first simplified the more politically and plot complicated part of the book, and so lost a lot of what it was about, this movie simplifies the politics-and-plot in the less politics-and-plot part of the book. Since this portion of the book was more straightforward anyways, the simplifying works. It works to bring out the main themes and lets them shine through simplified but theme-heavy characters.

Before we get to that, though, of course good this movie is a good adaption in its visuals. It is beautiful. The special effects, baring one or two jarring shots (there’s one of a flying machine flying over a city that looked really poorly rendered somehow), are absolutely flawless and stunning. There’s nothing quite like this movie. The mix of real Middle Eastern landscapes, real armor and knives and vehicles, and completely animated monsters and warships is somehow seamless. The book, in all its scale, fully comes to life. It’s a privilege to see. I can’t imagine what it must have looked like on the big screen.

Yet it’s not just the look that’s come to life. The story has as well. And it’s a simplified story.

There are no more traitors. There really aren’t any more factions. There kind of is, but those get dispelled pretty quickly and are summed up in generalities more than the previous factions were in Part 1. At this point, it’s Good Guy Fremen VS Bad Guy Harkonnen (yes, it’s more complicated than that, but the lines are easier to see).

In addition, we’re much more bound in this movie to a single plotline. While Part 1 struggled to adapt the omniscient perspective of the book, where you know everything every character is thinking at once, Part 2 gets around that by compartmentalizing the plotlines and removing others.

There are basically three throughlines: The Fremen with Paul, Jessica, Chani, and Stilgar; the Harkonnens, with the Baron, Freyd Rautha, and Raban; and the Emperor, with the Emperor, his daughter Irulan, and the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit. Those are basically the main characters of each plotline. Several have been removed from the book in each plotline.

For example, human-computer (called a Mentat) Thufir Hawat is cut. He’s in the first movie briefly. He used to be loyal to Paul’s dad, but the Harkonnens have captured him. In the book, he tries to turn Freyd Rautha and Baron Harkonnen on each other. Plotline cut! Instead, let’s just have Freyd Rautha and Baron Harkonnen not trust each other, shall we? Let’s cut the middle man. Harkonnens are warring inwardly and outward. Boom. Done.

The three streams are easier to follow, especially since usually a long chunk is spent on each at a time. We’re with the Fremen for 30 minutes, then the Emperor for 10 minutes, then the Harkonnens for 20 minutes, then back to the Fremen. While the clunkier, less poetic dialogue of Part 1 remains, it’s used more efficiently to set up the “streams” of each plotline and to stick to that stream. The Fremen fight the Harkonnens. The Harkonnens fight each other and the Fremen. The Emperor tries to figure out what’s going on. The goals are tighter, easier to follow.

The movie actually makes a better movie this way. The first movie just kind of weirdly… ends. But because this movie starts with Paul working his way into the Fremen, it really does feel like the beginning of a whole new movie. It doesn’t feel like Part 2. It feels like Dune 2. It is its own story, complete, with a beginning, middle, and thrilling end. The duel at the end of the first movie actually makes more sense now because this movie also features several key duels, some of which echo duels in the first movie. You get a better feeling of character arcs, because it doesn’t feel like characters are just moving on a chessboard. This movie feels complete, even though it is Part 2.

Because of its organization of plotlines and its feeling of completeness, two things happen. Both the culture, and the characters are given more room to breathe.

First, the culture. Because we get 30 straight minutes with the Fremen, we really get to see their religion and culture. We see the raising of the baby Sandworms, their worship intertwined with the Bene Gesserit, their respect and worship of water, their relationship with the Spice. We get to actually see and experience that as Paul makes his way up through the Fremen ranks. In the first movie, the Fremen just kind of seemed like a punchline for some culture clash jokes. Now, they feel like a fully realized faction, ready for war.

Second, the characters are weirdly given more room to breathe. I mean, they’ve still be flattened from the book, but because they still have their 1 or 2 things about them like Part 1, their “one or two things” can instead play out in multiple situations over time. Rather than “One or two things and a big thing,” like Dr. Yueh in Part 1, they get one or two things and then several big things. We can see how people change and react and are.

Yes, they’ve simplified by flattening out characters. Freyd Rautha is more despicable and diabolical than the book, where he’s more reminiscent of an experimented frenzied animal that you carry pity for. Stilgar never stops believing in Paul from the beginning, representing the “Fundamentalist” Messiah-believing faction of the Fremen. Chani never believes in Paul as Messiah, representing the not-from-the-book non-believing faction of the Fremen (in the book, Chani is actually the one who instantly believes in Paul and never leaves him, while Stilgar occasionally wavers due to jealousy). Jessica only believes in Paul to save him, another change from the book. Irulan is purely on the side of the Bene Gessarit. Guerney Hallack, friend to Paul, doesn’t hate his mom Jessica like the book; instead, he straightaway aligns with his mom in using the Messiahship to save Paul and avenge his father. All of these characters have been “flattened.”

However, this succeeds because it allows the themes of the book to shine. Infamously, many readers cheered for Paul in the original Dune and were surprised when in its sequel, Dune: Messiah, Paul is kind of a horrible person. The seeds, though, were present throughout the original (come on – you expect someone seriously considering committing mass genocide to be an OK person?) So, Villeneuve has brought the themes of the book – evident in the thoughts of Paul – to the forefront by changing the characters. Chani becomes our root, our eyes into seeing how Paul is using everybody. She becomes our voice. Princess Irulan is given more to do than the book, too, and her journal entries provide more of a window into the world of the Emperor and why he’s doing what he’s doing – and why the Bene Gessarit are doing what they’re doing.

Yes, like Dune: Part 1, we’ve removed some of the character complexity. But because each has been given one or two “things” about themselves, things that often reflect the main themes, those main themes can shine.

Manipulation. Belief. Religion. Cultural interaction. These are able to shine more clearly because we’ve flattened and shuffled and consolidated. Yes, plotlines are simpler; but then the themes shine through those simpler cause-and-effect plotlines.

Do I think this movie is perfect? No. There is still that clunky dialogue. The characters still aren’t necessarily complex even as they bring forward complex ideas. They’re repetitive sometimes. There’s a couple of weird cuts in fight scenes, especially some climactic ones.

(Spoiler alert, but the final battle itself, though visually spectacular, is kind of one-note without the tension of ups and downs and will-this-actually-work that the book finale has.)

So no, it’s not perfect. I don’t know if it’s one of the “Greatest Science Fiction Films of All Time.” Actually, I just watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and I gotta say I think on many counts – dialogue, characters, pacing, communication of complex ideas, group politics – that movie is much better.

But is this a unique movie? Heck yes.

Is this better than Dune Part 1? Undoubtedly.

Would Recommend

I’d say give Dune: Part 1 and Dune: Part 2 a back-to-back watch. Well, maybe not literally back to back, but a week or two apart at the most to keep them connected and fresh in your brain. If Part 1 is a drag for you, Part 2 won’t be. Streamlined, simpler, but because of that meatier than the first, Part 2 will leave you in awe as well as afraid.

Come for the amazing special effects. Stay for the characters communicating complex ideas. It’s not my favorite, but it is much better than Part 1.