Sometimes, there's just not enough room for
all the babies in the midst of intergalactic warfare. From altered villains to compressed timelines,
here's how Dune: Part Two departed from its source material. Lady Jessica is significantly more cold and
ruthless in Dune: Part Two than she is in the original novel. She's a bit of an antagonist, as she's the
one actively radicalizing the Fremen towards her son Paul's divinity, hoping to use this
as a way to control them. In both the film and the book, she's a member
of the Bene Gesserit, a secretive group of powerful women with special abilities. They can use something called the Voice to
control other people, and they train in a devastating martial art called the Weirding
Way. The Bene Gesserit are also obsessed with political
control. They've engineered specific bloodlines over
generations to create the Kwisatz Haderach, a messianic figure that they can use to gain
even more power. Over the course of centuries, the Bene Gesserit
have seeded fake myths and prophecies around the universe to be exploited when the time
is right. This includes the Lisan al Gaib messiah legend
on Arrakis. After Lady Jessica takes over as the Reverend
Mother of the Fremen in Dune: Part Two, she uses this position to make sure that Paul
gains absolute power. This is a departure from the book's more overtly
maternal and relatively passive characterization of Jessica. In the original novel, Paul and his mother
travel with the Fremen together rather than becoming separated for most of the story,
like they do in Dune: Part Two. This change works well for the film, as it
greatly expands upon the subplot of the Bene Gesserit's use of false prophecies. In the movie, the Fremen are split into Northern
and Southern tribes, with the Southerners more religiously zealous than those from the
North. Fremen leader Stilgar is from the South, and
as such, he believes in Paul's divinity as Lisan al Gaib almost immediately. Chani meanwhile, is from the North and is
correspondingly much more skeptical. This narrative change allows for the internal
struggles that Paul goes through in the book to be externalized and dramatized through
the conflict with his mother and his fraught relationship with Chani. This departure also arguably improves Paul's
character arc. In the book, he's understandably concerned
about his destiny as an emperor who brings about an interstellar genocide, but he's not
quite as reluctant as he is in the film. This makes it all the more tragic when he
starts to realize that he can't escape his own dark destiny. "Consider what you're about to do, Paul Atreides." "Silence!" Dune: Part Two also notably condenses the
novel's timeline. About two-thirds of the way through the book,
there's a multi-year time jump. This means that Lady Jessica has now given
birth to a daughter named Alia. Paul and Chani grow closer during the time
skip, and Chani also gives birth to a child, a son called Leto II, named after Paul's beloved
father. But Dune: Part Two jettisons this time jump
entirely, which is understandable for the sake of cinematic pacing. Some unfortunate cuts had to be made as a
result, particularly those babies. It's easy to understand why the film was compressed
in this way. But because the plot all takes place in a
matter of months instead of years, it perhaps makes the Fremen's faith in Paul's divinity
a little harder to believe. By far one of the biggest departures that
Dune: Part Two makes from the novel is the exclusion of Paul's younger sister Alia. After the time jump that happens in the book,
she's able to walk around and talk like an adult, despite being only a few years old. This is because her mother drank the Fremen's
Water of Life while she was pregnant. Alia, while she's still in the womb, gains
the knowledge of every Reverend Mother that came before her. When she's finally born, she's referred to
as "pre-born," meaning that even though she's an infant, she has adult memories and experiences. Alia's bizarre situation probably would've
required a lot of exposition to work on screen. Not to mention, a little girl who acts like
an adult can come across as rather goofy, as it unfortunately did in the 1984 adaptation
of Dune directed by David Lynch. Dune: Part Two gets around this in a clever
way, as much of Alia's narrative purpose from the book is fulfilled while she's still in
the womb, where she's voiced by Anya-Taylor Joy. She helps to radicalize Jessica and pushes
Paul towards his destiny while paving the way for her expanded role in a potential third
Dune movie. "And I just love the idea to keep something,
uh, like a surprise for the audience until the very end." In addition to Alia, the other child born
in the novel's time jump is Paul and Chani's son Leto II. But he's nowhere to be seen, or heard, in
Dune: Part Two. In the book, however, he plays a huge role
in his father's arc, as Leto is tragically killed, which understandably has a significant
impact on Paul's mental state. At the end of the novel, before Paul and his
Fremen army overwhelm Emperor Shaddam IV's forces on Arrakis, Paul receives a transmission
informing him that Leto has died. It's heavily implied that this event is a
serious tipping point for Paul, as his anger leads him to accept his destiny as the genocidal
Muad'Dib. Because of the film's condensed time frame,
it makes sense that Leto II's introduction and subsequent tragic death weren't included
in the movie. The vicious Dune villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
is perhaps most notable for his unique appearance. His overly rotund physique necessitates wearing
high-tech floating devices called "suspensors" to move around at all. In all filmed versions, these belt-mounted
suspensors also allow the Baron to hover menacingly in the air. However, he also possesses a ruthless political
mind that allows him to plot multiple steps ahead of everyone else. In both Dune films directed by Denis Villeneuve,
Stellan Skarsgård plays the Baron with an extra amount of quiet menace that doesn't
really exist in the books, where he's much more flamboyant. The Baron's role in the story as one of the
primary antagonists who mainly operates in the background is true of both the book and
the films. However, a big change is made on screen regarding
the end of his story. This is because in the novel, the Baron is
killed by Alia Atreides when she scratches and poisons him. However, due to the film's condensed timeline,
Alia isn't around to kill him this time. So instead, Paul does the deed by brutally
stabbing him in the neck. This is an understandable switch due to the
other changes, and it offers more foreshadowing of Paul's inevitable moral descent. Fans of the novel were eager for Dune: Part
Two to finally introduce Baron Harkonnen's vicious nephew Feyd-Rautha, who's played unforgettably
by Austin Butler. It made sense for the 2021 Dune film not to
include him, as his story doesn't start until the second half, but by March 2024 he was
ready to fully emerge. Despite Butler's memorable performance, the
film's characterization of Feyd-Rautha is quite different from the book version. For one thing, his physical appearance is
drastically altered, with author Frank Herbert describing him as "a dark-haired youth of
about sixteen years, round of face and with sullen eyes." In the film, though, he's seemingly aged up
considerably, as the actor playing him is 32. And rather than sporting dark hair, he's bald
and sickly pale. "I heard that the director told you that,
described your character as a psychopath swordmaster mixed with Mick Jagger." "Wow." Even more extensive are the changes to Feyd-Rautha's
personality. He's much more aggressive and physically threatening,
as evidenced when he beats up his brother Rabban in a scene created for the movie. Whereas in the book, he's depicted as charismatic,
conniving, and politically cunning. Also in the novel, he even almost outsmarts
the Baron at one point in an attempted assassination plot, something that movie Feyd doesn't seem
capable of. Another massive change that Dune: Part Two
makes is the characterization of Chani. In the book, she's pretty much a devoted follower
to Paul once they fall in love, and she remains so until the very end. While the book version of Chani initially
has some trepidation about Paul's marriage with Princess Irulan, she's nonetheless aware
of the political necessity of this decision, and she goes along with it without question. However, in the movie, Chani as played by
Zendaya is much more rebellious and defiant, which makes sense for how the character was
set up, even in the book. Fremen women are practically equal to the
men in their society, after all. They're expected to hunt, ride the giant sandworms,
and collect water, so it makes sense that she would be so strong-willed and opinionated. "Every character in this wants something different. Everyone has different motives and different
intentions." Furthermore, unlike the Chani on the page,
the movie version is aware of the Bene Gesserit's machinations. Or at the very least, she's suspicious of
Paul's divinity and the validity of the Lisan al Gaib myth, while also being aware of its
use as colonial control. She even challenges Paul during his rousing
speech to the Southern Fremen. At the end of the film, she understandably
runs away after watching Paul propose to Irulan, with the last shot a close-up of her distraught
face. There are many valid reasons for making changes
when adapting a novel into a film. In the case of Dune, certain scenes were cut
to save time, some characters were deleted or composited to streamline the narrative,
and events were modified for thematic clarity. Meanwhile, some other changes seem like they
were made as a corrective to the original text. One such example is when loyal Atreides warrior-turned-spice-smuggler
Gurney Halleck takes his bloody revenge on Rabban "The Beast" Harkonnen by killing him
during the film's final battle. This makes a lot of narrative sense, as it's
explicitly stated that Rabban had tortured Gurney in the past and that Rabban is the
one who gave him his distinctive facial scar. Even in the book, Gurney wishes to take revenge
on his former torturer. However, that vengeance never actually happens
in the novel. Instead, Rabban is killed when the natives
of Arrakis get sick of him and his Harkonnen thugs. This leads to them rioting, and murdering
him and his men. Admittedly, there's some poetic justice in
Rabban being taken out by those that he's been mistreating, but it doesn't have quite
the same impact as Gurney doing the job himself. As played by Florence Pugh, Princess Irulan
is given a lot more to do in Dune: Part Two than in the entirety of the first novel. That's not necessarily saying much, though. Before the final scene of the movie, she doesn't
do very much either, besides walk around the castle on her home planet. She also talks to her father, Emperor Shaddam
IV, as well as the other Bene Gesserit, including Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim, who are
all conspiring against the Atreides. Meanwhile, in the book Princess Irulan does
even less than that. She isn't even physically mentioned until
the very end, when she arrives on Arrakis with her father in his makeshift throne room
before Paul raids it. She's also cited in the book as the author
of various historical and biographical accounts of "Muad'Dib," with glimpses of that provided
at the start of each chapter. This is a smart and welcome change. Irulan isn't important in the first book except
as a plot device to allow Paul to ascend the throne in a final act of revenge against her
father. But she's an extremely important character
in the sequel Dune Messiah, which Denis Villeneuve has expressed interest in directing. It also allows her to be a conduit for other
characters to spout important exposition, which is expressed mostly in inner monologues
in the book. "She ends the movie on a dot dot dot, and
that is just the most thrilling thing as an actor."
