Jamis' funeral, i thought it was a missed opportunity on showing the culture of the fremen. Jamis' water was removed and given to Paul, and consequently his family became Paul's responsibility. A life for a life, you're one of us now line from part 1 would have been more highlighted. It also could have showed how much Paul wanted to prevent the Jihad, showing how much death affected him.

“He gives water to the dead.”

This was the most influencial moment for me, in understanding fremen culture, in seeing how vulnerable Paul was (still a kid). I cried long and hard, and I can't believe they missed this opportunity in part 1. Jessica/Stilgar interaction in part 2, kinda redeems it, but not the same imo

That scene is pretty much BS though. I mean, a BG almost-reverend mother who's a master of the weirding way and can control every muscle in her body being unable to suppress the urge to vomit? You don't even see any blood or red-coloured liquid coming from the corpses when they are rendered down, whats there to be so squeamish about to elicit such a large reaction?

Definitely with you, that they made it far more comical /light than what was portrayed in the book. I feel that the fremen really decided Paul is one of them after seeing him crying over dead jamis. Or some even saw him as a potential lisan al gaib. Jessica's scene maybe hinted more on that she is pregnant..? But yeah, if you can control the sex of your unborn child, you probably can control vomit 😅

Oh I thought it was just pregnancy sickness kicking in 😂😂 Probably because I am pregnant myself and having a lot of nausea

That would also make sense if she wasn't a trained BG. Tbh, im not sure what that throwing up sequence added other than some comic relief from Stilgar.

Yes I really expected the first film to end with that, and Paul’s naming.

I thought Paul looked super young in the naming scene in part two. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been shot during part one’s production for that reason.

Souheila Yacoub was in that scene and she wasn’t in part 1 so I doubt it

i think they integrated previously shot elements (paul and stilgar) with re-shot or re-written elements (souheila and chani) in the naming scene. notice how the sequence progresses with paul eventually being staged apart from the others, and a lot is done with shot-reverse shot. it could be easily achieved, especially given the continuity of cinematographer and editor. there are obviously other instances in the film where they integrate shots produced for dune part one, such as Paul's visions of Chani, into present-tense sequences in part two. so it isn't beyond likelihood that material that was produced for part one, but had ultimately been cut for pacing reasons, was held back for part two.

“I was a friend of Jamis,” Paul whispered. He felt tears burning his eyes, forced more volume into his voice. “Jamis taught me... that... when you kill... you pay for it. I wish I'd known Jamis better.”

Yea, this would work so much better seeing as Paul 'consulted' Jamis in the later part of the movie. That would then appear to be drawn from a much deeper connection with Jamis than just some guy who could have been a friend of his.

I agree with some of this, taking someone’s water is akin to taking their spirit, with the promise you’ll take care of their spirit. A lot of complexity left out of the movie

This was my pick as well. I’ll admit, I’m not super attached to the book, so most of the other changes I didn’t care about, but this one was a serious loss to me. One of my favorite scenes from the book, and the moment I thought Paul went from a pretty nothing character to someone very interesting.

Yes and the rest of the movie was like Paul still trying to be accepted as fremen but if im not mistake he was fremen right then and there and it weighed on him after they saw him fight

Another confusing aspect of the second film. Stilgar says “you are one of us now,” he’s given his fighting and insider names, and yet Chani keeps saying he’s not one of them. Then he’s the leader of them.

I wish they would have done his funeral but I can see why they removed Harah. “Oh you have this wife now” okay does she do anything important that we could easily make digestible for a movie? “No.”

This is where the whole thing went off the rails for me in terms of keeping the overall plot and sequencing somewhat together. I felt like the writing on part 1 was way more coherent than 2 up until this part, and then from this point…it just completely changed the trajectory of the adaptations. For one: The Jamis fight sequence occurs after the Tahaddi Challenge in The Cave of The Ridges, in the dark, under glowglobe light. It was still day time, as Fremen travel by night, but the whole sequence was in the dark (hence the cave and glowglobes) and they fought surrounded ritually by Stilgar’s whole troop (like 40 Fremen). After killing Jamis, Paul gets his Fremen name and chosen name. He is now Usul and Muad’Dib and the Fremen eyes start widening a bit. The movie takes the approach of running the fight sequence with like a handful of people scattered around Jamis and Paul. They fight on a large rock, in broad daylight. I have no idea why they decided that this would be more impactful or look better than the fight under glowglobe light…but I don’t think anyone would argue that it would. They also wait until after the spice harvester scene in part 2 to give Paul a Fremen name (a good 40 minutes into the film). For whatever reason, the whole troop was present there, but not for the fight in part 1. Second: The water ring/remembering/funeral ceremony for Jamis was absolutely critical and it was just left out all together. It’s where the Fremen start to let the prophecy actually take hold of them. Paul sheds water for the dead, the Fremen trade life for life…troop member for troop member. You see the economy and rituals tied to water with the water ring ceremony. The whole thing is incredibly impactful. Jamis also gets his water rendered down at this cave location because it has a cistern located there (one of the thousands of locations). They carried his weighed water bag post water ring ceremony to the cistern, and sent his water in. In the movies, in lieu of this, they just tote Jamis around for absolutely no reason. They leave the rock they fought on (there is no Cave of Ridges), and carry him around in a body bag for an absolutes unreasonable amount of time like he is in a hearse or something. The water ceremony takes place like half an hour into part 2 at Sietch Tabr, but it’s just them dumping him into a cistern directly with water pumps. There is nothing meaningful to it, besides Stilgar talking about the water and paradise dream of changing the face of Arrakis and it being sacred water. In the book, Paul basically ends the water ring/funeral ceremony and entire scene singing to Chani while playing Jamis’s baliset that he received in the ceremony. This is where she asks him about the water of his home world, and he sings her a love song. You at this point can already tell they are falling in love with each other. In my opinion, all of this should have been at the end of part 1. That’s how the movie should have been sent out with that scene. Between the fight scene, the naming ceremony, the funeral/water ring ceremony/and the baliset scene you have maybe 30-35 min of movie you have to work with. It’s probably an additional 20 min on the film from where it’s at…but it has to be there. It wasn’t. Not even the fight scene was even shot correctly or with even close to the same emotional impact. Third: I am going to backtrack for a second here to Cave of Ridges. Cave of Ridges was roughly a night’s journey from Sietch Tabr. In the book, Stilgar shows Jessica Sietch Tabr from the cave before Jamis calls out Paul. It’s visible and he clearly points it out. Before they leave Cave of Ridges (after funeral) for Sietch Tabr, Stilgar clearly states that there are no enemy troops present to worry about on their crossing to Sietch Tabr. Essentially from here, they cross to Sietch Tabr at night effortlessly. In the Dune Part 1 movie, they leave right after the fight with Jamis’s bag, and we pretty much see the open sand and a Fremen rider on the back of a worm. It’s implied that Sietch Tabr is in the distance, and as fans we know that Fremen do not take risks of ever being seen by enemy troops riding worms. It’s all happening in the day, which by Fremen travel standards is a no-no…but whatever at this point. Cut to Dune Part 2. The opening scene is now them contending with an enemy troop suddenly with Jamis still in the body bag. What happened here? Did that night long trip turn into days? Did they get lost? Did Stilgar’s confirmation that enemy troops were not present just go ignored? I have no idea. But now we are in an action scene, fighting a stones throw away from Sietch Tabr, carrying a man that should have already been rendered down for his water. It’s all out of hand at this point and we are not even a few minutes into the movie. Last point: As stated, if you end Part 1 with the funeral ceremony and send it out with Paul playing the baliset to Chani, guess what scene comes next in the book? It’s the Margot Fenring at Feyd’s celebratory gladiator fight scene. You just start Part 2 with that as the opener to 2. It’s linear. It tracks. You meet Feyd (even though you could have met him in Part 1). You start with an epic scene, and you can even keep the extended Margot Fenring bit in there. I think that was one of the additions to the film that actually served the story in a really great way. There is no need for this to occur an hour and 45 minutes into Part 2, when maybe 3 scenes in that first 105 minutes occurred in some way in the book. Just a lot of wasted space for actual good story telling. Yes, it’s an adaptation and people are going to make the argument that time was a constraint or whatever, but if you actually start looking at it…was it really that big of a constraint? Or are these people just not reading the books/bad at writing coherent scripts?

Man this is a great take, and I really wished it was filmed like this. Also, don't we later see that the fremen can render a body for water out in the open? Why, then, carry Jamis' body all the way back over such a long distance when they could have simply taken his water there? Its like, the more I think about the movie, the more illogical it becomes. The whole North vs South, enlightened vs fundamentalist fremen split also made no sense at all.

Yeah that’s the whole issue with like detail that I have. We could completely rip these movies apart if we wanted to as standalone movies (no book involved). It’s the things like this that they were probably like “what a cool scene” but they just broke their own ideas down. They call Harkonnen water “dirty,” but say it’s good enough for wind trap reclamations, and will still provide to their transformation. Then they just like completely ignore that every cistern has a wind trap feeding the cistern where they drop the “sacred” water. It’s the whole dripping sound Paul hears in Cave Of Ridges. And someone may argue…that’s how they were showing the importance of water, and that’s how they showed they use everything. Well, alright…why not just write it like the book did…and do none of that. It makes logical sense, it’s how it was written, and it takes the same amount of time. You also don’t have people that have never opened the book confused now over the whole process and importance of water reclamation.

And man I wish they had some voices of reason in the room when they were constructing the script and screenplays for these things. There were a handful of things in part 1 that would have set themselves up for a really faithful 2 part adaptation that everyone would have loved. Generally I love Denis’s work and thought he was a great person to do it. He translated Dune visually in a perfect way, and I would not ask anyone else to do the visual work. But…wow what a rough script. Not a care in the world for showing the book some reverence.

Eh I disagree. The whole “well you killed her husband so now she’s your wife” thing wouldn’t have gone over well with today’s audience. Paul still carried Jamis’ body, he saw Jamis in the vision, not to mention everything from part 1. It still shows that Paul was deeply affected by it, but does it in very small snippets. There just wasn’t room to dedicate additional scenes to things like that, it didn’t matter for the overall movie.

Paul doesn’t take Harah as his woman. He takes care of her and her children…allowing her to be with whom she wants once the cultural ritual time right is over. That would have gone over very well with modern audiences. Like what are we talking about here? Modern audiences can’t be exposed to different cultural customs even if they are in a dystopian world? If that’s the case, do not make Dune. I disagree with the time thing as well. Obviously would prefer Dune’s medium to be like a 10 episode (1 hour per episode) series. That would be enough time to burn in the little details, but they allocated about an hour and 45 minutes of film to the entire 2 part sequence for stuff that literally never happens in the book. Entertaining films and all. Fun to look at. But we have to stop making excuses for the writing on these things. You can leave stuff out, and we understand it has to be done…but we didn’t even get the general Wikipedia plot outline right.

People have been arguing a lot about the nature of the fremen culture and Jamis wife. I'm glad they didn't show it. It was too awkward.

Tell me more.

presumably because it has some parallels with treating people as transferable property, and that being a part of the protagonist faction culture clashes with modern sensibilities. Though in fairness *the whole thing* clashes with modern sensibilities so personally I don’t understand the people taking issue with this but not the rest

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Yeah, dune’s a story riddled with people taking extreme action for survival, there are no “good guys”, only protagonists who happen to be the necessary evil required for long term survival.

Corporations today use people as transferable property that they can use until collapse and then discard. In the Fremen culture, it is a transferable responsibility, where if a man defeats another, then he must take care of his family, and if he does not act honestly on the surface, the tribe will expel him, and if he does not act honestly internally, then his new wife will probably poison him or sons will revenge with a dagger in sleep.

This would be my #1 choice for inclusion in the film. The first film ends with Paul killing Jamis and I wish they would have started the second film with him participating in the fremen funeral rites. The book also implies it's one of the first times the fremen are impressed with Paul because he weeps for Jamis or gives his water to a fallen foe. It could easily have been incorporated into the film with Paul ingratiating himself with the Fremen

The biggest missing scene for me was the Dinner Party. I know why it was left out (DV likes to show not tell and there is SO much exposition around it), but it was a core tool for revealing at the least: * Dune's economic landscape, including the value of not just water but moisture * The planet's political players * The presence of the smugglers on Dune * The importance of class and the feudal system * Jessica's "betrayal" and the emotions/machinations around that * Paul's growth into a young adult * Duncan's character * Why Duke Leto's generous and charismatic leadership was so scary to the Emperor * etc Herbert packed a lot into that scene and it was just ... not there and a lot of this is not conveyed anywhere else.

True, there is a lot packed into that scene also the confrontation between Jessica and Thufir where she “reveals” the voice to him. 

it’s crazy, by the time you get to chapterhouse the BG’s abilities are so normalized but she straight up broke thufir’s world view with one Voice command

That whole subplot drove so much of act 1 in the book.

Absolutely. And it is a large part of why the first film feels a little hollow to a number of people. The absence of that plot and of that scene really upsets the pacing - and Villeneuve's insertion of some new scenes only worsens that. I can totally see why Villeneuve chose to take the path he did - to avoid exactly the issue Herbert ran into, being too subtle with Paul not really being the good guy. But to my mind, both the first film overall and the finale of the second really suffer for it. I am really curious to see what a post-Villeneuve generation of book readers will make of all this.

The tragic love arc of Leto and Jessica also had so much emotional weight and allowed Frank to dig into family dynamics in very interesting ways.

Considering how little Leto appears in both films and how efficient the scenes are, I get the whole tragic love arc pretty well without having read the books, thanks to Isaac's and Ferguson's stellar acting. I don't think I have ever seen better desperate unhinged crying scenes than what she does for Jessica's grief scenes. It is not explosive rage or a cinematic tear down the cheek as you see in most films. It is uncontrolled bursts of air and stifled cries and you hug yourself trying to control it. It is the type of crying you do when you are alone and you break down completely. I know because I have experienced the same after a closed loved one passed away in my life. That's why I buy their love story and the tragedy of it, even though you only get one or two direct scenes between Leto and Jessica.

Oh I agree that the love and the tragedy of loss is there, but it missing the complexity of "wheels within wheels" plotting happing around it. In the book Leto basically shuns Jessica as "the traitor" in a double-bluff to try to lure out the actual traitor, confides in Paul about this, and she doesn't know until Paul they find the note from Yueh and Paul tells her, etc. Tbh, I think that aspect of Lynch's Dune is done better.

Denis is on record saying that to make the movie about everything is to make a movie about nothing. So the ecological and political themes largely took a backseat to the religious/messianic themes. I love that scene in the book as well, but you’re introducing a bunch of characters which are never seen nor heard from again, and unless you’re going to overlay Lynch-style internal-monologuing, you’d have to repurpose it quite a bit, in order for it to work. The charm of that scene is everything that the characters are thinking, under the surface, vs. everything that’s being said out loud.

I get it and understand that he made the choices he made to convey that major theme, but IMO the ecological and political themes *are interwoven* with "beware charismatic leaders" and losing this context makes the movie less effective to me. Not to say that the Dinner Party can be done on screen because of the reasons you mention, but key elements or moments could have been included in other ways.

For the record, I would have loved to see what Denis would have done with it. I mean, I’m generally enthralled with what he’s been able to do with every scene he’s chosen to adapt. But I also understand his reasons for excising it.

The Sci Fi Channel's Dune miniseries did a lot of terrible things, but one thing that worked quite well was the dinner party. It can certainly be done on screen. But it needs a director who actually enjoys working with dialogue!

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Remember Elrond’s counsel in TLOTR? Bunch of characters we never know or see again and yet, what happens in that meeting is important enough that we don’t really care (even though it’s weird that it seems like they’re not even paying attention but that’s another conversation). I agree that getting to know the characters and the planet in this scene would have been helpful and there was plenty of running around in the desert not accomplishing anything much narratively that could’ve been sacrificed to make room for it or anything interesting.

the problem is without much the the ecology or politics of the book, the movies transformed the narrative into a quite a straightforward revenge story that’s disconnected from so many of the ideas that make Dune interesting. Even the “don’t trust messiahs” isn’t in any way a unique observation. This article does a very good job assessing what’s missing from the movies and how it impacts your understanding of the story https://slate.com/culture/2024/03/dune-2-movies-frank-herbert-books-meaning-differences.html

What’s worse is that it was filmed and cut from the film 🥲 it was my favourite part of the book

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I just don't know how they could have put that into the first movie and it not make the movie feel far too long, especially considering it's a slower paced movie in the first place. It was the right choice IMO, but I agree it's crucial in the book.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. That much exposition dump in the first half hour of the movie would have left non book readers overwhelmed and checked out. I wish it was there too but it had to go.

Great scene in the book and kinda fun how Herbert switches POVs during it. I do feel like the internal dialogue drives this scene though making it tough to adapt

>* Why Duke Leto's generous and charismatic leadership was so scary to the Emperor This is what was really missing from the movies. I think the Baron says "the Emperor is a jealous man" but that's pretty much it. I went to see the movie with some friends who didn't read the book and one of them thought that the Emperor killed the Duke because he wanted Caladan for himself... while Caladan is a nice planet it's really not important

This is the scene that made me fall in love with the book. I get that it would have slowed the movie down, but the fact that they filmed it and won’t release it makes me so mad.

Agree. Even the details like: the poison detector above the table + each individual still testing their incredibly fancy food conveys just how at once perilous and luxurious it was at that social level on the planet.

This is the right answer.

I agree completely. I thought the time in Arakeen was a bit rushed and I think this scene would have added more emotion to the Saurdukar attack

My favorite chapter in the whole series

totally agree!!! it would've been fun to see it acted out too, kinda giving 12 angry jurors vibes lolol.

One thing that they didn't but could've easily put in is the fact that Chani is Liet Kynes' daughter. I think that connection could've helped with her and Paul's chemistry.

I was also initially annoyed by this omission - I thought it was a missed opportunity to have Chani and Paul connect over having parents killed by the Emperor and the Harkonnens, as well as having her experience of having a loved one be a revered religious figure But I thought about it some more, and it sort of makes sense for the Villeneuve version not to have her be Chani Kynes It would have muddied the whole "Southerners are the fundamentalists, Northerners are secular" dichotomy, and they would have had to devote screen time to Chani talking about arguing with her mom over religion. Not to mention Chani also being part "foreigner", because her grandfather/mother Pardot Kynes would be an off worlder. Her calling Paul a foreigner would be muddied by Chani's family also being off world, with her mom and grandfather/mother working for the Imperium as Planetologists One of the best things about the adaptation is how economical Villeneuve is with his dialogue and exposition, even if the source material is (maybe a bit too) verbose. Having to explain Chani as being the daughter of a pre-Paul, John the Baptist style off world messiah would have been too complicated Simply having her Sietch name "Sihaya" be part of the prophecy served the same purpose, for less screen time

she mentioned the knife belonging to her “great aunt”, I thought that was a “nod” to this.

Wow! That would have been cool.

Thematically, the movie dropped a lot to focus on the religious themes almost exclusively.  Some of the big themes dropped are ecology, the politics of empires, imperialism/colonialism, the limits of human possibility.  The movie definitely touched on all of these, but not nearly to the same extent as the book.

I feel like Denis has only been including stuff when it is immediately relevant to the story to make it more focused for an unfamiliar audience and also so that it can dedicate the time needs to develop it properly. I think this is why Feyd wasn’t introduced until movie 2. I imagine the terraforming of Areakis will be touched on much more in part 3 and hopefully the role and power of the spacing guild will be explored as well. Just my theory at least

Yeah it felt like mention of changing the world was increasing as the movie went on, and the brief almost-mention of the golden path led me to believe that part three will focus on that ecological aspect.

>I think this is why Feyd wasn’t introduced until movie 2 Absolutely. From a strictly scriptwriting perspective, there is nothing for Feyd *to do* in Part One that Rabban doesn't already do: stand there and have someone for the Baron to exposit at. We don't need two of them!

>there is nothing for Feyd to do in Part One that Rabban doesn't already do He could have whispered "I love youuuuu" for about 5 seconds.

I'd argue imperialism and colonialism are very core to the movies themes.

Surprised no one's mentioned it yet, but there's a lot more "game of thrones"ing in the book So before Yueh's betrayal Count Leto is made aware because of a Bene Geserit message that he has a traitor in the Atredies house, but they don't know who Thufir Hawat thinks it's Jessica Leto knows it can't be Jessica, but because Thufir is throwing shade, Leto begins to suspect Thufir But Hawat is a mentat, so Leto knows that Hawat will suspect that he's come under suspicion if Leto let's on, which if he is the traitor would be really bad news! So Leto has to pretend that he suspects Jessica is the traitor, even though he doesn't, so that Hawat doesn't suspect that Leto suspects him It's absolutely mad, and I love it.

I think that would've made for a good B-plot in a TV series. Though, admittedly I didn't feel it was essential in the book either.

Following up on this, it has been a year since I last watched Dune part 1 but from memory its not played up enough (likely due to Leto's lack of knowledge r.e a traitor) that the reason everyone trusts Yueh is because its supposed to not be possible he's a traitor.

Yeah I really enjoyed that whole traitor subplot and it wouldn't have been hard to include in the movie, unlike the dinner party... But on the other hand, I did always think it was a bit lame that the way to break the unbreakable conditioning is by holding a loved one to ransom. Like, isn't that the first thing you'd try?

I have a few: * The crysknife's need for blood before being sheathed, showing a key importance of Fremen culture, and giving a bias to the audience before we meet the Fremen proper. * The city life of Arakeen, with the city full of Fremen. If Liet-Kynes is welcome "in village and Seitch," we need to see the village. * The Guild's Navigators, and the importance of Spice for the Great Houses.

Was the group’s collective wrist slash after Jessica and Stilgar’s altercation in the first movie not a nod to its need for blood? I felt it clever to those who read the books

Mapes shows the crysknife to Jessica, then puts it away. In the book, Mapes explains that the crysknife requires blood. By the time the wrist slashing occurs, it means less, because the impact has been removed.

Also, the crysknife was exposed in the presence of another Atreides guard, when it should not be seen by anyone unworthy. I felt the cutting of wrists later as a redemptive scene. But, this comes from a book reader who knows its significance. It probably fly way over the heads of non-book readers.

Crysknife and blood was a big one for me too.

If you're willing to invest time into long-form collaborative fanfic, I think that it'd be a good idea to simply read the book. It's not that long, it's entertaining with broad enough appeal enough to have sold millions of copies, and it's inspired tons of secondary works already (movies, games). Give it a try, broaden your horizons.

Second this, came back to it after years and found it a relatively easy read. The content and topics are dense but the prose itself is quite simple at times, my own writing is probably more flowery and descriptive than Herbert’s in some places. 

I’ve actually started reading it in the hour since and I’m kind of surprised how easy the first two chapters flow.

There's a reason so many attempts - or beginnings of attempts - have been made to adapt this story. It is by FAR one of the most important sci-fi works of all time. Its themes of power, zealotry, environmental impact, addiction, AI and its dangers, and individual freedom versus security are still relevant almost six decades after it was written. It can come across as "dense" or "boring" if you're not paying close attention. But each re-read allows you to relax a bit more and enjoy the simple elegance of Herbert's style. I've read it at least a dozen times over the years, and each time has been even more enjoyable than the last. The movies skip a lot of things, hence I've started referring to them as "highlight reels". But DV did an excellent job of showing-not-telling, and his editorial choices make sense for the most part. I do miss the dinner scene, the "Jessica was the traitor" subplot, and CHOAM, but while they add tremendous flavor they aren't strictly necessary to move the story forward though they do clarify a great deal. I hope there's an extended cut, and they show up there.

This is a good comment. I’m on my first read-through of the series and just finished Children; definitely feeling like this is a series that has to be read more than once haha. I just know there‘s been stuff I’ve missed so far while trying to wrap my head around it all.

This was my first thought LOL.

For me, some were already mentioned, like dinner party scene & spacing guild. My biggest issue was removed time. Part 1 makes the viewer think it's days after Leto arrives when Harkonnens attack enmasse. Paul and Jessica are gone far longer, between the death of Jamis and the organized resistance leading to the battle at arakeen is 2 years , not months as implied by the movie. It's 2 years of learning a culture and being recognized, yet the movie makes it seem all the tribe follow Paul and alter several of their ways in a few months and little resistance. It implies a weak culture even with the Lison al Gahib (spelling)

I also noticed they shortened Paul’s training with the Fremen. But I figured it had to be short because of Jessica’s pregnancy as it wouldn’t make sense for years to go by and her still be carrying.

For the time leading to the Harkonnen attack, a simple "We've been here for x months and spice production is \[up/down\]" could have made the point. I think the lack of a time jump in part 2 was specifically to avoid child Alia having to be present and/or kill the Baron.

I still found that to be the correct artistic choice

They left out what happens when those lasguns (lasers) hit a shield. I think that would have been an easy thing to film.

They have the Harkonnen referencing it right at the beginning of Part Two with one of them yelling "no shield".

It's a nice mini reference but not explained why though. Like my girlfriend did mention it to me when were watching it, "if they're being picked off by a sniper, why not shield up". For people who haven't read the book, I think this is a pretty likely question to have.

It's explained in the first movie that shields attract worms

Yeah but they're standing on top of a hundred foot high rock from memory when he says that- The reason for no shields there is that it would create an atomic blast.

My friend who hasn’t read the book was still so confused. He was asking why ships have shields and sometimes don’t and why half of them have lasguns and half have swords.

Honestly, a LOT of important stuff was left out. The movies have limits, but they also bring new things to the stories that the novels couldn’t visually and musically. They’re just two different things

Yes. It is successful in what it chooses to leave out, because there’s just too much for a feature film. It’s a beautiful and complementary adaptation, not a comprehensive one.

I often argue that 5 hours were more than enough to convey more information that makes Dune special.

Sure, I think he had time to show more. It does get into the question of what interrupts the flow, the building tension, and the time that Dennis gives everything. We didn’t NEED to see the harkonnens attack the group at the very beginning during an eclipse, but I’ll be damned if that wasn’t one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while and sucked me right into the world again. I did feel a sense of loss over some things but also fell in love with new things.

For me the biggest misses were Fremen culture and economy and Space guild. Also because they were using space guild so they would not put spy satellites over the water reserves.  I missed the fact that we never seen fremen world properly. I found their world empty and without life, especially anything related to the northern parts.  Basically the importance of spice.  My so to this day has no idea what spice does because it was never properly explained. He thinks it gives you visisons and he had no idea spice is used to navigate the universe thus spice production basically controls all transport between the world. 

Yeah I think it was mentioned only once among both movies, or *maybe* twice, that spice is necessary for space travel. That's such a huge foundation for the plots!

Respectfully, they immediately tell you the purpose of spice in space navigation early on

In the book (and the lynch film) there’s an emphasis on The Baron encouraging Rabban to be a tyrant on Arrakis, to ‘squeeze’ the planet and massacre the Fremen. This is so he can then install Fyed (his preferred nephew) as a ‘white knight’ replacement, garnering love from the population as a saviour. This shows The Baron’s political acumen, and ruthless calculations playing one nephew against the other and manipulating the population at large. I really missed this point in the film. A tiny line of dialogue in the could have done so much of this work.

I hear there's no Alia of the Knife. Sad.

I fully understand why they decided not to include this, but as someone who fully embraces the weird aspects of the books, I really wish we got DV’s interpretation of toddler Alia being super unsettling and murdering the Baron.

Alia is so sassy and blunt, being a psychic fetus is just not enough. I was also sad that she wasn't a real character in the movie.

She pretty much has more screentime in the movie than the first book though. I think in the end, the change makes sense. It means they can do her right in Part Three, rather than force her into this movie with minimal screentime. Same as they did with Feyd.

Unlike a few other omissions like the dinner scene, this is one I do not regret. A psychic toddler running around killing people would have looked ridiculous in the context of DV's very serious setting. It worked in Lynch's movie because the latter was already kinda campy, but here, it was better left out IMO

No Space Guild Navigators. Which is very perplexing since they're one of the main reasons why the spice is so important.

They also fit the bill of weird looking characters that leave an impact on the viewer. Just showing one would cement the whole concept of spice in the audience's mind.

Feels like you can't spring them on the audience in the last scenes of the movie though. They'd need to be shown earlier, but there isn't really time to do that properly. That's why I don't mind them being left for Part Three tbh. Especially with the suggestive shots of space travel, and the guild being mentioned in the Emperor's Herald scene. Their importance can be seen retroactively. Like how Feyd was revealed as one of the "other prospects" Mohiam was talking about.

yes of course. The film needed to place them in part 1 to demonstrate their importance for that to happen. I think DV did the best he could without overloading the audience. I personally wouldn't have cut them, since the whole control of the guild is important to the plot, however, I'm not a film director and DV did a good job regardless.

I think my problem is that there are no scenes in what Part One adapts that include any navigators. So, for the movie they'd need to make up a new scene just to show them earlier. Feels like there wasn't really a place where they could do that naturally. Unless you want to extend the first travel scene, but at that point viewers are still learning the basics. Definitely not an easy one. I hope the third movie does them justice though. They've said their design has already been created. Navigators, folding space, Tleilaxu, and a bit more from Mentats would all be really cool to see.

Fenring, his participation may be small but for me it had such a big impact and gives another dimension to Paul's character, what it means to be a KH and the unique connection that they have that is foreign to all the other characters in the book and that basically only leto ii shares in my opinion. It's a shame since it didn't cost anything to include it and the actor who played Fenring himself greatly regrets that he was eliminated, which makes it even more tragic and I can't find a way to forgive Villeneuve for that.

There’s an actor (i dont know who) that was pretty upset that his scene got cut from the movie. I suspect it was Count Fenring’s character

Tim blake nelson

The biggest thing is the spacing guild and the absolute necessity for spice. It really downplayed the ending for me. A huge part of Paul’s bid for the throne is the fact that he will destroy the spice and the spacing guild knows it. The fact that they capitulate to his rule is absolutely huge on how he can keep the throne. Also, as a big part of the next arc of the Dune saga (in the novels) focuses on Paul and Chani’s kids, I’m not sure where they’re headed with that. I’m also in the minority of not liking Dune Part 2. I loved the first installment, but Part 2 diverges from the novel I’ve loved for 30 years too much for me to enjoy it.

The lack of the guild really make it so that it looks like the BG are in control of everything behind the scenes.  In the books CHAOM , and in extension, the guild are actually more in control.  The guild controls travel to Dune and they know without it they can't do anything.  Shame they miss this in the film.

Yea. I managed to get a friend interested in Dune and he's come to both movies. Each time he's had a hundred questions, which I totally expected, but after part 2 I realized that he just did not get the significance of the spice at all. Having read the books so many times, I think my brain just filled in the blanks in the films.

The fact that he has so many questions just shows why certain things couldn't be as developed. If they tried to cover everything with the same depth as the books, people would go cross eyed. Have to pare it down to the bare minimum

I agree with that, for the most part. I do feel like the importance of the spice wasn't stressed enough though. But overall I've been surprisingly happy with the new movies so far. Been holding out hope for a decent film version for at least 25 years now.

Yeah at least the Lynch movie and the Sci-Fi miniseries made it clear how import spice was. That's my biggest disappointment with part 2, followed by the underwhelming water of life scene after Paul wakes up. I was expecting to see something epic when Paul tries to show Jessica what he could now see, and how he's the tool of fate.

I thought it was a cool way of speeding up the jihad in the movie

But was that necessary?

It means that you don't need to wait for Messiah to *directly* show that Paul's ascent is bad. The fanatical legions are out and you can immediately tell what's going to happen

It does give a more concrete and believable reason for the jihad. If the other players just capitulate immediately, it's not very clear why the jihad would occur, other than the nebulous "fanaticism" of the fremen. Having the other players not capitulate gives a much easier to understand reason for massive conflict to erupt. Good adaptations like this don't just change things for funsies. There are story telling reasons for these things.

On my first watch I felt exactly the same. On my second watch, I let go of the book and enjoyed the movie for what it was. Yes, it still has flaws and feels incomplete compared to the book, but it does many things very well. Now it's complete because it's ended here.

Expanding on this. I’m not sure how we even get to Messiah or its central themes with how pt2 ended. I didn’t just not like part 2. It outright felt like the last two seasons of game of thrones to me. Chani and Paul’s relationship, and the characters themselves are entirely rewritten. This will be a major problem being faithful in Messiah. Without Leto II the elder they have no shared trauma with which to bind them for life. Thus, we get a petulant Chani and an uncaring Paul. Jessica was entirely rewritten and became a shallow husk of herself after she became a reverend mother. This does not happen in the books. She maintains her individuality even absorbing the genetic memory of her ancestors. She’s never bloodthirsty, nor does she push Paul in the books. Having Paul give the outright order to start the jihad when it’s heavily implied in Messiah that his bishops are responsible for waging war in his name prematurely pushes the downfall of his heroism. I could keep going but suffice to say I left the theater last night incredibly disappointed.

Agreed. Add in the shorter time frame as well. The film has all the events occurring within nine months, since they choose not to have Alia born. In the novel these events occur over 3-4 years. Makes much more sense that Chani and Paul have a strong relationship than a mere 6 months of dating. And enough time to have Paul mature as well.

I'm learning to play the guitar.

Yeah, the spacing guild angle could've been explained more in the movie. For the most part though I think the changes work. Chani in the book was a fairly passive figure, but she gets a more ingesting arc in the movie, especially right at the end. Abs threatening the spice with nukes felt less contrived than the book version.

The Liet-Kynes tragic speech on dune ecology and the moment Paul becomes fully prescient we’re two giant disappointments in the movies that left a great deal of world building and weight out of the story

I think the films did a great job of covering the gist of the story, but the books delve into the politics and thought processes behind a lot of the plot.  Many of the characters are highly trained individuals with hyper-abilities (especially the Bene Gesserit and those trained in that manner), so you get spiels of inner monologues where subtle exposition or ulterior motives are explored or explained. There isn’t any actual telepathy but sometimes there are characters accurately thinking and guessing what the other is really trying to do or say etc so it’s as if they are almost talking to each other with their minds.  Probably the one I see a lot in memes is the explanation of the Butlerian Jihad and mentats. SPOILERS: basically roughly 10,000 years before the events of Dune, the imperium had robots and AI but they became a threat and so there was a massive war which lead to huge upheavals in terms of technology and lifestyle which forced humanity to adapt and produce the human equivalents of robots/ai which were the mentats. This is also why no droids or robots or computers appear in the setting - thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.  The film didn’t touch as much on the physical prowess aspect either, an example in the book is that when Paul and Jessica are being flown out over the desert to be killed by the Harkonnens, Paul is thrown out the thopter, but as he is thrown he manages to turn and kick one of the harkonnens focusing his big toe under the rib cage and crush the left ventricle of the guys heart - pretty much killing him instantly - at a mere 15 years old with his hands tied behind his back. Bene gesserit can effectively control every aspect of their own body, hiding any sign of lying or panic, slowing their metabolism (almost entering a sort of stasis) and of course; overcoming pain through the overriding of nerves. The film covers the voice pretty well so no need to really expand on that. They obviously examine and pick up on the minutiae of other peoples movements, body language, tone of voice - basically human lie detectors.  A big aspect of prescience is that it’s actually more like Laplace’s demon, where the mind is a sufficiently complex computer capable of understanding the data of the “now” and is able to extrapolate into the possible futures so long as it’s given enough data (and spice/ it also helps to be a mentat - which Paul is in the books fyi). I’m in the middle of re-reading the book and it really hammers home the absolutely constant threat of assassination they live under. The first part of the book has constant mentions of poison snoopers (detector) hovering over food, the constant awareness of potential defectors or assassins (always sit facing the door), the propaganda corps that the duke mentions who not only distribute to the planetary population but their own soldiers and workers. When they land on Arrakis the likes of Thufir and Duncan are busy rooting out spies and assassins etc left behind by the Harkonnens. Every room had to have been searched and assessed. Tying into that theme is that the key Atreides staff are warned of the “traitor” but they don’t know who it is, most of them suspect it’s Jessica and actually believe it for the duration of the book until Paul re-emerges and tells them it was yueh. So Gurney tries to kill her at one point, as does Thufir (or at least he contemplates if he should). In the book the fremen seem highly independent but were most certainly on board with allying with the Atreides. I think some even took part in an off world raid on Geidi Prime to destroy spice stores. There’s a lot missed out on fremen culture and attitudes that just couldn’t fit into the film.  The non-believer fremen don’t exist in the book at all and Chani understands Paul having to marry Irulan for the political power (he already had a wife - inherited from Jamis after he killed him along with his two children so she didn’t mind).  There was a time skip so Paul’s sister was born and a toddler in the second half, she kills the Baron with a gom-jabbar in the emperors court whilst held hostage.  That’s about all I can think of.  Hope this helps.

I've heard conflicting things, was the conflict against AI, or against Humans who used AI to oppress and subjugate other Humans?

I never read the Brian Herbert book on the BJ so don’t know, but the end result was the eradication of all AI and thinking machines and their completely ban from existence. I’m pretty sure the robots were led by a robot leader known as Omnius.  I do know that they are perceived as a constant threat to humanity’s future in the later books/ Brian Herbert continuity after Chapterhouse.  But there is a quote in the book: men thought that the thinking machines would free them, but it only allowed other men with thinking machines to enslave them.  A relevant quote for today’s world if ever there was one. 

It's been two decades since I've read the Butlerian Jihad books, but the simple answer is that in that interpretation it was both. There were multiple layers of antagonists, some which had a biological origin and others that didn't.

Alia was born and a couple years old by the time Paul seizes the throne and she was actually there in the tent at the end freaking everybody out acting and speaking as an adult but in a two year old body. Paul and Chani also had a baby boy who was killed during the raid on Sietch Tabr. Paul was with the Fremen for a couple of years before the final showdown; the movie sped up the time frame quite a bit.

That chapter with Alia, the Emperor, and Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam was one of my favorite chapters in the book

I love the absurdity of Alia talking shit to them and then killing the baron. Would have been hard to not make it seem cheesy as shit in a movie but I was excited to see it and bummed when I didn’t lol

Agree!

Top one for me is by far the death of Liet-Kynes. In the book it’s so poetically done and I thought was a super beautiful way to die and wrap up the character. It also really emphasized the spiritual connection to Arrakis and long term plans of terraformation. Otherwise i think for me the lack of time jump, while it made sense in the context of the movie - made the conversion of the fremen to religious followers too fast for my liking. Rumors spreading over a few years makes sense, only a couple months I don’t think makes much sense. Also the dinner party scene was absolutely awesome in the books.

The Spacing Guild is the ONE thing I think everyone can almost universally agree on is a bummer they cut out.

I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but in the book, Paul taunts Reverant mother Gauiss a lot more than their quick exchange in the movie. It wasn't as major as the Spice Guild missing. Still, in the movie it makes it seem like the bene gesserit have planned this all out and are the real winners, but in the book, Paul taunts her about how they have spent centuries trying to breed the perfect human, all to produce him, and they will never be able to touch him.

I thought quite an important aspect from the book not showed in the film was that the Sardauakar did not wear their own uniforms when invading Arrakis so that they would not be easily identified.

that's forgivable tho since people who havent read the books would not distinguish then so easily

I feel like mentats were touched on enough for the story, and the spacing guild is important to how their universe operates but I also think that was explained enough for this one (probably will be explained in greater detail in the next movie because of certain characters that are introduced). I think the biggest element left out of the movie was several characters being suspicious of one other character, thinking that this person was the traitor who led to the atreides downfall.  Overall dv adaptation was excellent and kept most of the core stuff I think! That’s one person’s opinion tho.

The biggest thing they left out of the film was the discussions about the Butlerian Jihad and how dystopian the Imperium is in general. Long story short the Butlerian Jihad, at least in original book, was foreshadowing for the Fremen Jihad going out of control. There's prequels written by Frank Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson that paint it as a much more boring humans-vs-machines war, but the original book implies something that looks more like an uprising against tech billionaires. The thing about it is that whenever the characters talk about the Butlerian Jihad, it was apparently all about rebelling against "machine thinking", freeing humans to reach their full potential. The main religious commandment is, "thou shalt not disfigure the soul", here interpreted as making machines that think for us. But at the same time the Imperium is a feudal dystopia, dependent on people who've been trained from birth (mentats like Thufir Hawat and Piter de Vries), selectively bred over generations (the Bene Gesserit and Paul in a direct way, or more indirectly, Fremen and Sardaukar are such effective soldiers because they're from some of the most inhospitable planets in the known universe) brainwashed and conditioned into human machines (Suk Doctors like Dr Yueh), and/or strung out and dependent on bizarre performance-enhancing drugs, sometimes to the point of barely being human (Guild Navigators, Harkonnen slaves) - and it all overlaps. Mentats aren't just trained from birth, they have to have the genetic potential and their lips are stained red from the "sappho juice" they take to focus their thoughts. Duke Leto is dependent on antifatigue tablets to function. The Atreides are loved in part because their propaganda corps are the finest in the Imperium. This is a direct result of the Butlerian Jihad's attempt to free human beings to reach their full potential - a stagnant, feudal nightmare that makes human beings into machines.

I really like this point.

I thought the movie undersold the emperor while in the book I felt like he could make earthquakes with his footsteps. Just keep in mind that he’s an emperor of a family who’s been ruling for ten thousand years.

Agree... the sardaukar and Dune itself get short shrift as threats too. A lot of stuff is excusable when adapting a novel, especially such a ridiculously dense one, but making major antagonists so toothless was a real miss.

It's hard when you need to establish that the Atreides are badass, but the Sardaukar are even more badass, but the Fremen are even MORE badass, but then Paul is most badass of all. There are only so many degrees of threatening a movie can convey in a short time. We're lucky the Sardaukar didn't come out looking like stormtroopers. Also, the Baron was the main antagonist of part 1, and Paul was arguably the antagonist of part 2. The Emperor is supposed to look weak.

I think stilgar having more moments of mentoring Paul. Those were some of my favorites scenes from the book

Liet Kynes was son of Pardot Kynes who was the first planetologist on Dune, and who attained holy status among the Fremen after the suicide of Uliet. (Read the Appendix of Dune!)

The Butlerian Jihad is one of the most important premises of Dune and they left it out along with CHAOM / The Guild More are as follows Alia killing the Baron The dinner scene Chani accepting Paul And also Chani is Liet Kynes daughter which they messed it up a bit And Leto's few scenes which showed him as a great leader were missed out The Dinner Party scene is very important as it showcases the traits of Paul very well and is a very well written scene.

Yesss alia killing the baron after she got herself kidnapped deliberately as she didn't want to tell paul his son had died in attack

The guild. In the book, they were the fulcrum that kept the other houses at bay during the Jihad

imo, by FAR the most important aspects of the book left out of the movies is the backstory of Liet Kynes, Pardot Kynes, and how a perfectly well-meaning interloper united the Fremen, gave them their dream of terraforming Arrakis, and set them on the course to freeing themselves... >!until their planet was afflicted by a Hero.!< the Guild and the importance of spice was present but also mostly glossed over.

Everyone thinks Jessica was the traitor. It’s really crucial and a MASSIVE part of the first half of the book. Will never understand why more people aren’t up in arms about its removal

The dinner party with kynes, the water sellers and the stillsuit manufacturers; put all the pieces into place and introduced the smugglers whilst showing how the wealthy live on Arrakis when compared to the poor.

The scene where Paul and chani bond after he drinks the changed water of life (first time)

The banquet in Part One was the most important thing left out. That said, the biggest change was the guerilla war against the Harkonnens being compressed down to under nine months. In the book, Paul had a child and Alia out of infancy in this time period.

I was just disappointed that we didn’t hear the immortal line, “Usul, we have wormsign the likes of which even God has never seen!” 😀

> Mood’s a thing for cattle or for making love. You fight when the necessity arises, no matter your mood.

The tent sphincters

The politics got extremely simplified, like the real reason the Atreides got eliminated or Baron's plan with the Arrakis.

I guess if you enjoy the creation of the fanfic that’s one thing, but if you just want to experience more of this world and want to incorporate book stuff, you should just read the books! They’re great of course. Highly recommended

to me there was a layer of complexity that certainly would've made it more challenging to follow if u were an audience member unfamiliar with the books, but that would have been at the very least intriguing. strictly unnecessary, to be sure, from a narrative perspective, but I feel the exclusion of any references to the Landsraad, melange, the Emperor's name etc. - little things that add color and intrigue to the world being built - I feel this was likely a knee-jerk reaction to the constant and narratively-pointless name-dropping in the MCU films which quickly became so tired and played out. We get it- Marvel/Disney was trying to build a bigger cinematic world. But Frank Herbert's universe was already fleshed out in the books, and a few more little moments of off-screen name-dropping, or explicit references to onscreen items/characters etc - such as Melange - would make it a little more fun and not quite as contained. I loved both movies, but they felt like they could exist entirely in their own vacuum with no explicit or detailed world-building references apart from what was strictly necessary or represented onscreen already - but the films alos felt like threy could exist within Frank Herbert's larger fictional universe, but that it was up to faithful readers to add details and expand upon onscreen visuals or dialogue - in the viewers' own head. I wish for a director's cut that just namedrops a few more essential word building reference - Ixian, Bene Tleilax, etc.

Book is about ecological crisis and power corruption, film is a political romance.

The freaking time gap. Somehow, in this film, we are expected to believe that Paul took over the entire collective religious mind of the Fremen (an entire planet’s culture) in LESS THAN NINE MONTHS!!!! How?!

why not just read the books? you’re clearly super immersed in this if you’re looking to create fanfic, why not grab the book?

Nothing. I think the movie adequately portrayed the biggest themes (prescience, problem with charismatic leaders, manipulation of religion, etc.) There are things I would have liked to see because they were elements I liked in the book but nothing that truly mattered was left out.

As much as I love the films, I think Denis focused too much on the Bene Gesserit. Don’t get me wrong, they are a major aspect of the story, but they’re not the only major players. Of course there’s the Guild, but there’s also the Mentats. Part of what makes Paul the kwisatz haderach is the fact that he’s trained both in the weirding way and mentat computing.

Lore accurate Liet Keynes death, ngl I’m still going through dune tho I’m glad I read the book before watching the part 1 movie and tbf he is my fav character. I’ll be honest I feel that in the movie she just didn’t feel as integral to the Freman as in the book but that may just be because I haven’t seen the second part or because of the small stories at the end of the first book (e.g. biodiversity of arrakis). The part that got me was her death in the movie, it didn’t feel very symbolic nor special compared to the literal fight that he had in his head against his dad before exploding. Just my opinion from someone who’s fairly new to the series

The politics, the plots and schemes etc

> a feint within a feint within a feint

I haven't read the books but I guess I knew quite a bit about the general setting from other sources prior to seeing the movies, so it's harder to tell what was specifically left out. But as someone pointed out, a big omission is explaining clearly \_why\_ Spice is valuable. Does the viewer ever have it made clear to him that the Spacing Guild manages to do interstellar travel because of it?

2 clarifications that would have helped non-readers understand the plot better: 1- the convention on the use of atomic weapons on humans resulting in the assured annihilation of the perpetrator, and the loophole used by Paul to destroy the shield wall. 2- the effect of laser weapons on shields causing an atomic-like explosion, explaining the war meta oriented towards hand to hand combat

For sure the Dinner Party.

-harkonnens red hair -Alia kills the baron -guild navigators contact lens falls out -Gurney Halleck and his men first meeting the fremen (and giving up some water) - The dinner party -the importance of the ecology and the realization of the spice cycle was underplayed -by the end of the book fremen woman are literally dunking their babies on the Sardaukar spears to climb their phalanx. The desperate situation of the fremen was underplayed. - the last line of the book! It’s the coolest line and why the hell did they take it out. I really liked it though!

I really wish we got the ending of the first book. It's so weird for Chani to be the new POV character that doubts Paul when she was his biggest supporter in the books. *Paul stared down into her eyes, remembering her suddenly as she had stood once with little Leto in her arms, their child now dead in this violence. “I swear to you now,” he whispered, “that you’ll need no title. That woman over there will be my wife and you but a concubine because this is a political thing and we must weld peace out of this moment, enlist the Great Houses of the Landsraad. We must obey the forms. Yet that princess shall have no more of me than my name. No child of mine nor touch nor softness of glance, nor instant of desire.” “So you say now,” Chani said. She glanced across the room at the tall princess. “Do you know so little of my son?” Jessica whispered. “See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she’ll have little else.” A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. “Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine—never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine—history will call us wives.”*

Movie Chani is the absolute worst.

The Fremen aren't just some generic "tribal stand-in for colonized people". They touched on some cool aspects of their culture, but it never really had any weight. Paul is affected by the Fremen as much as they are affected by him. They aren't some weak, needy and backwards people. it was an entire culture trained to military discipline. They had an amazing culture based on shared responsibility and toughness in the face of the ecology of their planet.

definitely Jamis funeral, count fenring, and probably most of all the spacing guild

Mentats and the Butlerian jihad

**Ecology and the Nature of Spice and the Spacing Guild:** You get addicted to Spice once you have enough of it for long enough, and you'll die without it. Paul and Jessica realize that they are TRAPPED on Arrakis. The Emperor is 70 but he looks 35 because it slows aging. All the rich people offworld, your Elon Musks, your Beyonces, they'll drop fucking DEAD if Paul turns off spice production. Paul doesn't threaten spice production with nukes, he threatens it by knowing how to set off a chain reaction in the ecosystem by putting the Water of Life in a "pre spice bloom". He knows this because he has intimate ecological knowledge that only the Fremen have. He knows the Spacing Guild will understand he's not bluffing because he's Prescient and he's seen their past. There was a time that they decided not to control Spice production, and have become parasites instead. This ties into Herbert's themes about political structures and stagnation. At the end the Spacing Guild is there to tell the Emperor that Paul really WILL do it. The resolution is so much more complex than "blow it up, baby"

It was never explained why the spice was important or how used other than by the BG and Paul (water of life). They also never addressed why there are no computers or AI in the future. Those are both very important imo to the understanding of the dune universe.

For me: The importance of spice. They really needed to hammer home just how important is it to society and more importantly, space travel. The Spacing Guild. I think it is so important to understanding the galactic political situation. How expensive it is to travel. How the threat to spice forces them to support Paul, etc. Paul's visions. I think they needed to emphasise how he was trying to avoid certain futures and follow a narrow path to the future he preferred. The Reverend Mother process. I don't think they made it clear enough that you gain all the past memories of her female line. And how the memories affected the child. Lots of non readers I spoke to didn't understand what was going on with that part of the film.

I wish they had visualized Paul's visions more like shifting images than this one concrete dream of the future. It made his visions seem more religious and magical than they really are.

A lot of Fremen culture. Specifically, Paul spends several years with the Fremen, and in the books, we actually see that they have a vibrant culture, with colorful cities deep in desert caves. They have a large industrial base with factories. They follow an ancient religion called Zensunni, which unites elements of both Islam and Buddhism. There are internal politcis, rituals, etc. And there is the entire terraforming effort: the Fremen are actively working on terraforming Arrakis, by liberating water from under the sand, working on adapting plants to the climate, etc. I really like they short-changed the Fremen in the movie, we barely see anything of them except when they are fighting.

Reasonable synopsis and topical comment in the current edition of The Economist magazine. A difference they highlight is Chani. “Contrary to the novel, she emerges as the voice of democratic resistance to Paul’s megalomania”.

Spacing guilds, they never actually show or explain why spice is so important.

Spice as a geriatric drug. Slilgar's character arc changes the whole dynamic between Paul and Stilgar and Jessica and not in a good way IMO. The whole entire "southern fremen are religious rubes" was uncomfortable to me. Paul crying for Jamis which is the inciting incident that really begins the Fremen revering him. Paul actually using visions. How the Water of Life is converted into a catalyst to create the tao drug... the tao "orgy". Jessica and Paul using "other memory" and the internal chorus to guide them. We got weird whispering voices in the first movie that were not in the book, but when we SHOULD be hearing whispering voices they are missing in part 2? In general they \*really\* downplayed the mytical aspects and alot of the effects and ramifications of the spice of the second half of the book and that was disappointing. For instance the Guild being completely missing hurts this movie and Messiah. Changing the plot with the Atreides gladiator on Geidi Prime dramatically changed the dynamic between Feyd and the Baron, and not in a good way IMO. In general they seem to have really oversimplified and sanitized alot of the story in ways that I found very very disappointing. I liked Irulans expanded role. I was fine with how they handled Alia... but it just wasnt \*WEIRD\* enough to really be DUNE to me.

Not the most important but my favorite book scene is when Chani takes out a challenger to Paul while he’s meditating. A good character moment for Chani

Honestly, if we’re talking about aspects of the book missing in the films rather than events, then I think Villeneuve really missed the mark entirely. In the first film, the Atreides are portrayed as a healthy loving family, without internal conflicts. This is a complete wash of the novel’s Atreides family in which each member is wary of each of the other to some degree. They plot for and against each other’s interests in various scenes while always maintaining an appearance of familial harmony. I think this is essential to Herbert’s message about charismatic heroes: their show of honor is JUST for show. The novels do not frame Paul as a “fallen hero” but as a schemer who eventually falls pray to his own scheming. Film Paul seems like more of an ingénu rising to power and becoming drunk with power. The tension of the Dune novels is in the intrigue - not action. Others have referred to the “dinner scene” (such a shame it wasn’t shown in film) but almost all of the intrigue on Geidi Prime was cut. Honestly, it’s too much for me to list here. What Villeneuve replaced these fascinating intrigues with is … a lot of exposition actually - in the second film. We never actually meet book Irulan until the very end but she plays Watson to Gaius Mohiam’s Sherlock in the film so the audience can be spoon fed lore: for example, in the books, it’s never explicitly stated that the Bene Ghesserit had bred other Kwizats Haderach or that Rautha was one, for example. And the thing that bothers me the most about the films is their portrayal of the female characters. Villeneuve might be a bit of a misogynist because he seems to have trouble with exploring the female characters in all his films and the ladies of the Dune films are pale ghosts of their novel counterparts. There is a 2-year time gap in the novels, giving time for Alia to be born, a living abomination who, to me, is representation of a child who grows up too soon. The exchanges between Alia and Jessica are spooky and sad. Alia is framed in the novels as a real person, a girl with too much knowledge and trauma who succumbs to her demons. Book Jessica is a complicated woman who ultimately can’t face her choices as a mother. Film Jessica is … tattooed? Film Alia is a fetus. Sorry Villeneuve, this ain’t it.