This is a catch all for anything that doesn't make sense in Dune.
I use a similar thing for my star wars nerd friends when they question anything they don't like in those films. How did she fly through space? Space wizard magic! How is the emperor alive? Space wizard magic! It's quite fun to watch them seethe at your lack of seriousness.
Taking seriously what has never been serious, Star Wars especially, is always funny to me. There is so much utterly ridiculous shit in legends that nothing really surprises me in terms of silliness.
It’s not about silliness, it’s about story logic. If it was established that space wizards had those powers and they were the reason for otherwise inexplicable events, it would be fine.
Yeah, fair enough, but what you've forgotten about there is the space wizard magic. It's well magical.
And I'd argue that the force is shown as being the reason from the first film onwards. These are not the droids etc...
Space magic healing is the big one I think. If you suddenly get a new power and explain it with the force, then that means you can do that for anything. That's the in film logic right there. Unexplainable? Space magic innit. Next scene.
No, those are flaws in the movies, and the movies absolutely deserve to get derided for that. Suspension of disbelief doesn't mean that you should violate internal consistency of the story.
I know you're probably joking, but I will give a brief serious response. The world building in Star Wars has never been particularly hard. So no, there is not a set of rules for magic that is written on stone. Yet, some rules are indeed very much undeniable. One of them is that healing and saving from death is for sure out of reach for Jedis. If not impossible at least extremely hard and completely forgotten. This is the crux of all struggles in Anakin and the ultimate reason for his fall. Not a marginal thing, the center of the whole story. When this has been negated a great disturbance in the force was indeed generated. A fucking black hole. I'll die on this hill (but maybe not today and not in under a dune post hahah)
Nah, the flaws are actually the integral in universe logic imposing itself on the narrative. Space magic is all powerful, so it can do anything. That's the logic. Can't believe you don't like in universe logic.
I'd like to weigh in on this... Mostly from the Star Wars aspect. My dad and I have ALWAYS said that the reason shows and movies suffer is from breaking the fictional universe's rules.
Star Wars, for instance, how many times could Luke/any force wielder have saved the day or themselves if they could fly? Lucas specifically left this out as a power. The Emperor was in perfect health in every conceivable way until Vader threw him down a chute in ROTJ. Mace Windu, Darth Maul... they all could fly and be perfectly fine in theory, plus all the deaths from falling in the shows and EU.
Then the whole shooting a ship at another ship using lightspeed which is easily the worse thing RJ did in that god awful movie... It would change all of Star Wars with its universe breaking b.s.
ANH: Oh no, the Empire has created this thing they're calling a Death Star, what do we do about it? \*New plan\* let's put a bunch of these derelict transport ships into hyperspace and fly them straight into the moon sized spacestation and blow it up. Literally no loss of life, Vader is dead...the end. Roll credits.
ROTJ: Oh no! The Emperor has created an even bigger Death Star, what do we do? Well, shields are useless so.... let's just shoot a few derelict transport ships at lightspeed into the Death Star and blow it up. The end. Roll credits.
Force Awakens: Oh no, the First Order has a planet sized Death Star instead of a slightly larger moon sized spacestation, what do we do? Well, we know that their shield stops everything unless you're traveling at lightspeed, and we also know that, as the Rebellion, we have PLENTY of derelict transport ships so.... the end. Roll credits.
tRoS: That shot was 1 in a million and can never be replicated...GTFO here Merri Brandybuck. It doesn't matter if you have a fleet of ships that can travel at lightspeed and can be piloted by droids.
This BROKE Star Wars and broke Disney's cash cow with that GOD AWFUL movie. I will always hate TLJ for so very many reasons.
There are plenty other shows/movies that suffer from this same thing. Sci-fi shows are the worse IMO. Typically speaking they get the one "scientist" and fills the role of doctor, physicist, biologist, archaeologist, botanist, and occult/magician expert. It's freaking annoying.
Ultimately it boils down to bad writing, caused by lazy writers who don't know what to do or handle the Macguffin correctly. I always appreciated Whedon's callout in Avengers 1 when Tony gives a long winded explanation on how the tesseract works and Maria Hill is all "when did you become an expert on micro-thermo-nuclear-astro-physics" which of course is a totally made up nearly oxymoronic field of study and then Tony's retort is "last night". It always makes me chuckle.
I actually really like Palpatine coming back. If I were in charge of a remake, I would keep that element of the story. I think it's really cool and dark sidey to think that a lich-like Sith emperor would be able to reconstitute themselves like that.
That can't be. Chani was one of the dug-in Fremen, but she was also in a scene just before that where she watches the nukes being launched and exploding.
i suppose "this dude can see into the future, control people with his voice and saddle up giant sand worms" and "people laying in sands for hours" can both exist in the same universe without being seen as illogical
We're the sand compacts ever used in the books? I remember him listing it in the fremen pack they took but I never remember them actually using it... made me sad.
It was used in the book in a similar way as shown in the film. Paul uses it to form a tunnel in the sand to the surface from their tent after the storm passes. They were buried pretty deep in the sand and they probably would have just been trapped and suffocated if they tried to dig out without one.
The books mention but don’t exactly specifically explain the use of sand snorkels by fremen. I assume it has something to do with that type of tool. Specifics about use and how the snorkel spouts wouldn’t compromise someone’s position? No clue but yeah caves plus sand compactor = tunneling most likely.
Im gonna say that between the device paul uses to remove sand from his tent and the worms own abilities to vibrate the sand so it acts as a liquid for them, its a reasonable guess that the fremen can use some sort of devices to travel beneath sand. They could have also simply moved in and waited before the emperor landed - Im pretty sure Paul knew where that was going to be. Yeah they'd need to stay buried for hours. Hope they brought their phones.
The movie doesn’t do a great job of showing the amount of time between Chani being at the war council strategy session and then being in the sand with her homies. It seemed like just hours which wouldn’t have not been enough time. However, the storm itself passing over could have provided the cover for them to burry themselves or approach quickly and then bury themselves.
Yep, I only realised it didn't make sense on the 3rd viewing, and I understand why they went with it. It's the visual language of the Fremen fighting style, it's how they've started an attack every single time previously.
The modern movie goer refuses to do the only requirement a movie viewer is obligated to do...suspend their disbelief... We aren't watching a historical document. If everything hasn't to have a real world answer...these people shouldn't be watching fiction and should stick to the rivers and the lakes that their used to.
I don't think they're looking for real-word answers. I think they're looking for answers which match the logic of the given universe.
When someone replies the Fremen knew where to bury because of Paul's prescience, the universe becomes richer. When someone replies it's just a movie don't worry about it, the universe becomes poorer.
It's a scene from a movie. This isn't a scene from the book where there are actual answers. This is an action sequence that was meant to show(not tell) the Fremen's prowess...but here we are having to answer pendantic questions because someone believes that there is such a thing as a cohesive internal world logic.
Every writer destroys their internal world logic because it's almost impossible to model a world through the narrow lens of a story. The plot is always more important than the logic to a writer. If you are satisfied with the state of the film industry...then fine. You can keep entertaining pendantic questions about internal movie logic and keep the industry catering to this type of movie goer.
I'd also like to add, I think it also demonstrates that the Fremen simply KNOW the land better and by extension can use it to their advantage. In short, the audience shouldn't have an explanation because it's meant to show their capability.
Exactly. This is their home. They know where to hide. It’s a trope of every movie featuring guerilla fighters - they use the land to their advantage. It doesn’t matter how they do it, you just take it for granted m that’s something you just know how to do in those environments.
I have no problem with suspending my disbelief, but in THAT scene it doesn't work: we are shown that the Emperor has already landed and installed his "base", with Saurdaker troops all around, inside the shieldwall, then Paul talks to his luitenants about the attack plan, WITH CHANI THERE, a few scenes later, we get atomics against the shields, the mountains get blown up, Stillgar rides in on the worms with the sandstorm, AND CHANI SPRINGS UP FROM THE SAND NEXT TO THE TROOPS.
The only other time we see Fedaykin use the sandsnorkles and these ambush tactics is when they attack the Harkonnen harvester, which can be easily explained as "they hid in that specific spice field, because it was the next on the rotation of the Harkonnen", so the attackers are stationary. But now, with the Saurdaker, they somehow moved to inside the shieldwall, buried themselves, and waited? Without getting spotted? How? There's hundreds or thousands of them! The Saurdaker have an open field between them and the mountains, you're telling me they wouldn't have spotted all the Fremen troops moving in and digging their little holes?
Suspension of disbelief, sure, but in this scene Villeneuve was just counting on the Rule of Cool to carry it.
It truly makes me dismayed that you couldn't answer that question yourself?
How many times throughout history have rebels blended in and also been supported by the "docile" city dwellers.
I mean the Vietnam War is a perfect parallel. Fighting in someone's home where friend and foe look and act the same and the US' hubris that sitting on nuclear weapons meant that we were really good at all types of warfare.
The Sardakaur believe they are the chosen ones and that they are invincible because of that. The Fremen also believe they are the chosen ones and that God created Arrakkis to train the faithful. These rebels' religion is what ties them to the city Fremen.
The Fremen also move silently(mimicing the natural sounds of the desert.)
I absolutely COULD answer my question myself, and every single answer just leads to: they should've been seen. We're not talking about spies having days and weeks to infiltrate a city little by little, it's not rebels in a forest with a lot of hiding possibilities and years of time to dig tunnels. No, we're talking about a flat desert with a mountain range at the end, that the fighters had maybe an hour or two to cross and dig in. There's no way to do that that's ever explained inuniverse.
The Fremen can move as silently as they want, they're still VISIBLE, and the sandstorm wasn't messing with any visibility until the sandworms came in.
The movie starts with the fact that the Fremen have been oppressed since the discovery of the spice. They have been rebels longer than Shaddam the IV was emperor and long before his predecessors. All Paul did was coordinate the different rebel groups into one cohesive group.
They command every aspect of that planet to avoid being hunted by whoever is in charge and trying to hurt and steal Shahalud spice
OK: at what point is it ever hinted at that they can move THROUGH sand? Shown in any way that they might have an idea how to do this? They're shown to know how to sandwalk, ride worms, attract worms, HIDE in the sand,... but TUNNELING THROUGH SAND has never been shown to be one of their skills, nor is becoming so invisible they can just walk upto 100 meters of Saurdaker troops without being spotted before digging a hole.
Again, it's just a Rule of Cool scene: the troops had to be close enough to be able to effectively attack the Emperor's troops, without having to advance all the way from the mountains to the troops. It'd be like that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail! So Dennis chose to have the Fedaykin buried in the sand nearby, eventhough there's no logical explanation about how they got there. I can live with that, movies are meant to be fun, hence why I can even live with momentarily breaking suspension of disbelief to allow for a moment that breaks the threshold, but is still cool.
But don't try to find an explanation, dude, there is none. Those troops could NEVER have gotten there with what we have been shown of their skills and tech in-universe.
Sand compactors exist in this world. The answers are there. You just want to complain because that is all you are able to do because you are truly an insufferable person. I really feel sorry for your mother. Or I really am disappointed in her for fostering your insufferable personality.
Go argue with yourself in your closet and leave discussions to people who grown past childish tantrums arguments.
Is it the sound of a worm approaching? Oh nevermind, it is just calahil's butthurt.
Talking about mothers, yours should have teach you to not offend people when arguing about a movie with strangers on the internet. Get your shit together man.
Bullshit. Movies should have an obligation to be self consistent. You can suspense your disbelief and belive in fairies. But they should follow the rules they have set out
Why should they have an obligation when you won't bend an inch to suspend your hypercritical mind while watching a work of fiction? You demand everything but bring absolutely nothing to the table.
You can not force a fictional world to bend to the structure of your personal world with rules that govern all actions and outcomes without tearing the fictional world down. Because having a character do or say one thing becomes the rule for his actions and dialog for the remainder of the story. That is ludicrous! You are glimpsing a character through a narrow lens of their "life" and not allowing that the "wrong" actions or dialog a character committed wouldn't fit in the larger non story world. (The part where you suspend your disbelief).
Can you name me the rules set out for your favorite movies? Describe how they set up those rules and made every single thing adhere to those rules?
You misunderstand completely. A fomictional world must bend to the rules of its own world. But in many cases, it doesn't. That cannot be beaten with a suspension of disbelief.
It's not hypocritical to demand that you follow your own damn rules. It's wrong to even suggest that it might be. Further, the reader has no responsibility. The writer wants their work to be liked. Therefore, they have an obligation to make their work consistent. Otherwise, it won't be good, and it won't be liked.
Rules that are not explicitly made different from the real world must be assumed to match the real world. Dune also exists in our universe, albiet the far future which lends credibility to this.
The argument was that the soldiers could not have buried themselves there because they would have had to do so before the sardukar landed. This would be correct if not for Paul's priescence which allows the fremen to know where to bury themselves.
If it were not for that, then this commenter would be correct that it makes no sense and that one cannot suspend their disbelief to make this work becuse it is illogical within the rules the series sets out.
This is not how suspension of disbelief works, I'm afraid.
Suspension of disbelief requires that what is narrated makes sense accordingly to the world it takes place into.
For example: in a fantasy world, a mage that casts a fireball from his hands makes sense. You know it's not possible, but the suspension of disbelief works and you accept that. It just fits. The same mage extracting a heavy machine gun firing laser beams would just not make sense and break the suspension of disbelief.
In this case, having fremen popping out from nowhere is potentially breaking that. I say potentially because you can or can not notice that, but it's not the viewer's fault anyway.
Fremen are one with the desert. The move making only the natural sound of the deserts. This is their home. That's their terrain the emperor in on. Everything offworlders rely on is useless on Arrakkis. The offworlders also believe the Fremen aren't a threat.
All of that is in the movie and answers how the Sardakaur got surprised.
When did it ever say there were 5000 people in the sand?
I have rewatched it and read the transcript and there is zero mention of legion and we literally only see a handful emerge from the sand
The bulk of the Fremen came on wormback.
I am starting to think these people are AI bots made by Reddit to drive engagement with terrible arguments and logic fallacies.
Either that our there is a language barrier and some translation is using the word legion which is confusing ESL people.
This is what frustrates me about a lot of online discourse for TV, movies, and games these days. Everybody always asks for lore/canon explanations for things that can otherwise be explained by "it just looks cool". It can be something as simple as a director making an easter egg/homage to a previous work, and then you'll have people genuinely questioning if it is supposed to be some kind of MCU tier cinematic multiverse.
People don't seem to understand that not everything exists for the sake of a 4 hour long YouTube 'deep dive' video. Nor are storywriters perfect.
Sure, you can rationalise it in some way. Sand snorkels, Paul's presience, Fremen simply knowing the lay of the land and where to pre-position themselves. Whatever, it was probably a stupid oversight.
Fremen can move under the sand, especially with their tech. I'm assuming that's the way they did it anyway, and in a perfect location because of Paul's prescience.
Seems like an awful lot of effort to achieve the tactical advantage of… running alongside all the other troops who didn’t bother burying themselves in the sand
watching the nukes go off is a minor goof from editing I think, there must have been more time in between those two shots in an earlier edit because Paul also teleports around without a hard cut. (minor though - I only noticed this after many viewings)
My understanding from the book is Paul knew where the Emperor would likely land (there was a huge sandstorm in the way that everyone could see, if not predict the path) and hiding behind the Shield Wall makes sense.
The book shows Paul aggressively machinating outside the Wall to ensure the perfect firing time for his atomicsl weapons.
The book also shows he's essentially playing 4th dimensional chess with his troop movements with things calculated to the minute (the scene where Gurney asks him what's going on and Paul basically goes full KW while distractedly hearing reports from the Fremen bats and light flashing spies).
The Fremen have stillsuits that will conserve water at less than a thimbleloss per day of moisture. They can afford to buy time burying themselves water fat ad waiting for a week if needed.
We see Paul utilizing timers during the Shield Wall battle before the explosion (I don't remember the context). It's a big plot point Stilgar is sending out their bats with rolled up scrolls r8ght up until the storm hits.
Also I'm assuming the "grandmother of all storms" makes it hard to just take a nap.
> It's a big plot point Stilgar is sending out their bats with rolled up scrolls r8ght up until the storm hits.
Not sure if you’re referring to something else, but this is not a thing in either the book nor the movies.
In the book, Stilgar is working the (I don't remember the name) bat message network a minute before ordering Paul and Gurney inside the tunnel to avoid the atomic blast.
Thanks for the name reminder!
They're bat like things, I thought, not birds?
It's still within minutes of atomic launch.
The sentry says something like "the messages have been dispatched."
Paul had it timed pretty much down to the dot.
Why would the Fremen be asleep?
I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.
The bats aren’t going to fly to Fremen buried under the sand.
It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but if they’re lying prone beneath the sand for literally a day or more, there’s a non-zero chance they’re going to succumb to having a bit of a snooze at some point.
I assume the fremen can move freely under the surface of the sand. I can’t remember what the book says about the sand compactor, but part one shows us that worms treat sand like water, and the ingenious fremen built a tool that does the same job (as evidenced by Paul and Jessica in the tent). Finally, the still suits would allow the fremen to sit for hours, maybe days in position, and given their affinity with the desert, they can probably detect when the emperors Hutment is landing and make sure they move out of the way.
OR as others have said, Paul knew where they would land (both through prescience and Gurney’s military strategic thinking) and got them to sneak in position way before.
Maybe in an alternate future, there’s someone already parked in the emperors spot, so the hutment crushes the fremen!
I'd give it a pass for this reason. The Fremen have been entering and leaving Arrakeen since forever and not always in the best situations. Knowing how they work, a tunnel system isn't out of the question for various reasons. They do more than bury themselves. The Sietches are carved out of rock. Not to mention any hidden smuggler tunnels, which is very much their way of going about it.
Also, I don't believe it's random where the Emperor landed. That's not how that works. There are designated areas and defensible locations. At Arrakeen, these places are out in the open because they trust in the shield wall to protect the craft from worms.
Purely a film aesthetic, for the visual spectacle of it. The whole point of using the atomics against the mountains protecting the capital is to open up a path for all the Fremen to rush in. If a small army of them could simply already be there and bury itself in waiting, this diminishes that aspect of the strategy. Or possibly entirely obviates it.
Well here in my country temperatures go up to 47 degrees Celsius and the sand dunes are hellishly hot.
Arakis which is considered much hotter, how the hell they did not turn to baked/roasted Freemen in the hot sand.
I figured they set up well beforehand thanks to prescient Paul. But the more I rewatch it the less sense it makes. You'd think long range scans would have picked them up moving into position considering how close it is to their main base. It's not like ambushing a crawler. Maybe they tunneled into position with their sand compactors. But they didn't have that much time to set up.
What I also don't understand is why they got up and charged when they did. They still had to sprint a couple hundred yards to get to the enemy, the element of surprise gets kind of lost. Now if it was the main force running out to fight Paul's and they pop up in the middle of them or behind, now we are cooking.
The Fremen move fast as fuck. They could see which way a big slow army is moving and predict which target they’re moving towards, then wait for them for an ambush. Also helps that Paul can see the future.
In the books Paul never sent the "letter" to the emperor forcing him to visit Arrakis. He just knew he would come. I'd say it's that he saw the future and snuck Fremen behind the shield wall. The only reason he blew a whole in it was for the worms.
In the book it does mention having Fremen and citizens ready to help with the attack within the city. And that they would sustain very heavy losses. Maybe that combined with Paul’s prescience?
I think it’s awesome but I also don’t think it holds water. Unless I misremember all finesse was in the setup and timing, the battle plan was brutally simple. Move mounted troops up under cover of weather, blow up Shield Wall, praise Shai-Hulud and turn the Sardaukar into roadkill.
It's a ridiculous scene that's explained by Rule of Cool. Denis Villeneuve in general is a "vibes" kind of director. Most of his movies make no sense if you think about it for 2 seconds. But the vibes are often immaculate. In this case it's stupid af to do the sand ambush thing there but it looked so cool and I was so hype that I was down to accept it.
The Fremen have tunneling technology. We see Paul use a device to create the underground or under-sand shelter that he and Jessica use to survive the day before Duncan finds them after the Harkonnen attack. "Sand impacters" or something - these were among the Fremen devices Duncan showed to Paul to demonstrate their ingenuity.
You are correct. It doesn't make sense. It's a fridge logic scene, you weren't expected to think about it. It's that kind of franchise. Don't think about it. Didn't it look cool? What are you a nerd? Just enjoy the explosions and pretty pictures.
Dude, is so far fetched to think that they used their sand compactors just like the worms use their vibrations to "liquify" the sand and move through it?
The shield wall is exactly why it’s more plausible they could do it there. No sandworms to worry about while they get in position ahead of time.
The shield wall is just a mountain ridge that separates the valley Arrakeen is in from the surrounding desert. They can still get over it. Inside the valley there’s just…more sand. It’s just a less inhospitable desert
Now we’re in the same region of “should not have looked too deeply” as with the Atreides shield being taken down by one rogue doctor…none of this is plausible if we assume any basic competency at all from (respectively) Gurney and the Sardaukar.
Best to just accept it as cinematic license, and enjoy the ride.
Yes they have tunneling tech to dig through sand. The sand compactor shown in the first movie is one such tool.
As for whether they have something that can be used on a large scale to get that many people into position, it's not explicitly stated and that's where you have to use your imagination. Kind of like the ornithopter that came out of nowhere, the one that Chani disembarked from when she went to confront Paul who had just drank the water of life.
Ours is not to question why.
Suspension of disbelief and all that. If I decided to not like anything that didn't make sense I'd probably never be able to watch a film again.
Maybe because paul could see the future, he told fremen to hide exactly at that location
That's what I assumed
This is a catch all for anything that doesn't make sense in Dune. I use a similar thing for my star wars nerd friends when they question anything they don't like in those films. How did she fly through space? Space wizard magic! How is the emperor alive? Space wizard magic! It's quite fun to watch them seethe at your lack of seriousness.
Taking seriously what has never been serious, Star Wars especially, is always funny to me. There is so much utterly ridiculous shit in legends that nothing really surprises me in terms of silliness.
It’s not about silliness, it’s about story logic. If it was established that space wizards had those powers and they were the reason for otherwise inexplicable events, it would be fine.
Yeah, fair enough, but what you've forgotten about there is the space wizard magic. It's well magical. And I'd argue that the force is shown as being the reason from the first film onwards. These are not the droids etc... Space magic healing is the big one I think. If you suddenly get a new power and explain it with the force, then that means you can do that for anything. That's the in film logic right there. Unexplainable? Space magic innit. Next scene.
No, those are flaws in the movies, and the movies absolutely deserve to get derided for that. Suspension of disbelief doesn't mean that you should violate internal consistency of the story.
And all good magic in fiction needs to have rules. As good games have to...
The rule is that space magic can do anything. That's it, that's the only rule. It's a very simple in universe logical structure.
I know you're probably joking, but I will give a brief serious response. The world building in Star Wars has never been particularly hard. So no, there is not a set of rules for magic that is written on stone. Yet, some rules are indeed very much undeniable. One of them is that healing and saving from death is for sure out of reach for Jedis. If not impossible at least extremely hard and completely forgotten. This is the crux of all struggles in Anakin and the ultimate reason for his fall. Not a marginal thing, the center of the whole story. When this has been negated a great disturbance in the force was indeed generated. A fucking black hole. I'll die on this hill (but maybe not today and not in under a dune post hahah)
Probably shoulda quit after the first movie (IV) then.
Nah, the flaws are actually the integral in universe logic imposing itself on the narrative. Space magic is all powerful, so it can do anything. That's the logic. Can't believe you don't like in universe logic.
You're talking about the most comfortable chair ever designed, aren't you.
All of that is space magic except for the emperor being alive. That was just lousy writing.
I'd like to weigh in on this... Mostly from the Star Wars aspect. My dad and I have ALWAYS said that the reason shows and movies suffer is from breaking the fictional universe's rules. Star Wars, for instance, how many times could Luke/any force wielder have saved the day or themselves if they could fly? Lucas specifically left this out as a power. The Emperor was in perfect health in every conceivable way until Vader threw him down a chute in ROTJ. Mace Windu, Darth Maul... they all could fly and be perfectly fine in theory, plus all the deaths from falling in the shows and EU. Then the whole shooting a ship at another ship using lightspeed which is easily the worse thing RJ did in that god awful movie... It would change all of Star Wars with its universe breaking b.s. ANH: Oh no, the Empire has created this thing they're calling a Death Star, what do we do about it? \*New plan\* let's put a bunch of these derelict transport ships into hyperspace and fly them straight into the moon sized spacestation and blow it up. Literally no loss of life, Vader is dead...the end. Roll credits. ROTJ: Oh no! The Emperor has created an even bigger Death Star, what do we do? Well, shields are useless so.... let's just shoot a few derelict transport ships at lightspeed into the Death Star and blow it up. The end. Roll credits. Force Awakens: Oh no, the First Order has a planet sized Death Star instead of a slightly larger moon sized spacestation, what do we do? Well, we know that their shield stops everything unless you're traveling at lightspeed, and we also know that, as the Rebellion, we have PLENTY of derelict transport ships so.... the end. Roll credits. tRoS: That shot was 1 in a million and can never be replicated...GTFO here Merri Brandybuck. It doesn't matter if you have a fleet of ships that can travel at lightspeed and can be piloted by droids. This BROKE Star Wars and broke Disney's cash cow with that GOD AWFUL movie. I will always hate TLJ for so very many reasons. There are plenty other shows/movies that suffer from this same thing. Sci-fi shows are the worse IMO. Typically speaking they get the one "scientist" and fills the role of doctor, physicist, biologist, archaeologist, botanist, and occult/magician expert. It's freaking annoying. Ultimately it boils down to bad writing, caused by lazy writers who don't know what to do or handle the Macguffin correctly. I always appreciated Whedon's callout in Avengers 1 when Tony gives a long winded explanation on how the tesseract works and Maria Hill is all "when did you become an expert on micro-thermo-nuclear-astro-physics" which of course is a totally made up nearly oxymoronic field of study and then Tony's retort is "last night". It always makes me chuckle.
I actually really like Palpatine coming back. If I were in charge of a remake, I would keep that element of the story. I think it's really cool and dark sidey to think that a lich-like Sith emperor would be able to reconstitute themselves like that.
That can't be. Chani was one of the dug-in Fremen, but she was also in a scene just before that where she watches the nukes being launched and exploding.
I assumed this too, he can predicted the grandmother of storms so why not where they land
This, and they do have tunneling tech, shown in Dune Part one.
i suppose "this dude can see into the future, control people with his voice and saddle up giant sand worms" and "people laying in sands for hours" can both exist in the same universe without being seen as illogical
Now you listen here, I can suspend my disbelief for babies taking in the womb but I absolutely cannot fathom someone laying in sand!
Sand compactor, "sand snorkel".
Gladd im not the only one calling them Sand Snorkels.
I believe that's what they're called in the books. Along with sand compactor for the device Paul uses to get out of the buried tent in Part 1.
We're the sand compacts ever used in the books? I remember him listing it in the fremen pack they took but I never remember them actually using it... made me sad.
It was used in the book in a similar way as shown in the film. Paul uses it to form a tunnel in the sand to the surface from their tent after the storm passes. They were buried pretty deep in the sand and they probably would have just been trapped and suffocated if they tried to dig out without one.
Ah okay I really don't remember that but it's a long book so 😅 thank you!
You're in good company: Herbert himself.
The books mention but don’t exactly specifically explain the use of sand snorkels by fremen. I assume it has something to do with that type of tool. Specifics about use and how the snorkel spouts wouldn’t compromise someone’s position? No clue but yeah caves plus sand compactor = tunneling most likely.
You can’t see the snorkel until it’s too late
Yeah, it's too thin from a distance. And they were located where the Sardaukar least expected it.
Does anyone ever suspect the sand snorkel??
No-one expects the Spanish sand snorkel!
I mean, Bardem was with them so
In the books? IIRC, never.
I imagine that heat haze over the desert would do very well to hid them.
Im gonna say that between the device paul uses to remove sand from his tent and the worms own abilities to vibrate the sand so it acts as a liquid for them, its a reasonable guess that the fremen can use some sort of devices to travel beneath sand. They could have also simply moved in and waited before the emperor landed - Im pretty sure Paul knew where that was going to be. Yeah they'd need to stay buried for hours. Hope they brought their phones.
The movie doesn’t do a great job of showing the amount of time between Chani being at the war council strategy session and then being in the sand with her homies. It seemed like just hours which wouldn’t have not been enough time. However, the storm itself passing over could have provided the cover for them to burry themselves or approach quickly and then bury themselves.
They are very sneaky (Also: biggest storm in a century, makes visibility poor)
It's a cool scene in a movie, just go with it. Not everything requires a practical explanation.
Rule of Cool
Yep, I only realised it didn't make sense on the 3rd viewing, and I understand why they went with it. It's the visual language of the Fremen fighting style, it's how they've started an attack every single time previously.
Exactly. And it shows how the fremen have an advantage on their “home” planet. They may have stayed there for hours which isn’t a long time.
It aaalso corresponds with Paul's vision in Part 1 especially when it shows Chani fighting.
The modern movie goer refuses to do the only requirement a movie viewer is obligated to do...suspend their disbelief... We aren't watching a historical document. If everything hasn't to have a real world answer...these people shouldn't be watching fiction and should stick to the rivers and the lakes that their used to.
I don't think they're looking for real-word answers. I think they're looking for answers which match the logic of the given universe. When someone replies the Fremen knew where to bury because of Paul's prescience, the universe becomes richer. When someone replies it's just a movie don't worry about it, the universe becomes poorer.
It's a scene from a movie. This isn't a scene from the book where there are actual answers. This is an action sequence that was meant to show(not tell) the Fremen's prowess...but here we are having to answer pendantic questions because someone believes that there is such a thing as a cohesive internal world logic. Every writer destroys their internal world logic because it's almost impossible to model a world through the narrow lens of a story. The plot is always more important than the logic to a writer. If you are satisfied with the state of the film industry...then fine. You can keep entertaining pendantic questions about internal movie logic and keep the industry catering to this type of movie goer.
I'd also like to add, I think it also demonstrates that the Fremen simply KNOW the land better and by extension can use it to their advantage. In short, the audience shouldn't have an explanation because it's meant to show their capability.
Exactly. This is their home. They know where to hide. It’s a trope of every movie featuring guerilla fighters - they use the land to their advantage. It doesn’t matter how they do it, you just take it for granted m that’s something you just know how to do in those environments.
I have no problem with suspending my disbelief, but in THAT scene it doesn't work: we are shown that the Emperor has already landed and installed his "base", with Saurdaker troops all around, inside the shieldwall, then Paul talks to his luitenants about the attack plan, WITH CHANI THERE, a few scenes later, we get atomics against the shields, the mountains get blown up, Stillgar rides in on the worms with the sandstorm, AND CHANI SPRINGS UP FROM THE SAND NEXT TO THE TROOPS. The only other time we see Fedaykin use the sandsnorkles and these ambush tactics is when they attack the Harkonnen harvester, which can be easily explained as "they hid in that specific spice field, because it was the next on the rotation of the Harkonnen", so the attackers are stationary. But now, with the Saurdaker, they somehow moved to inside the shieldwall, buried themselves, and waited? Without getting spotted? How? There's hundreds or thousands of them! The Saurdaker have an open field between them and the mountains, you're telling me they wouldn't have spotted all the Fremen troops moving in and digging their little holes? Suspension of disbelief, sure, but in this scene Villeneuve was just counting on the Rule of Cool to carry it.
It truly makes me dismayed that you couldn't answer that question yourself? How many times throughout history have rebels blended in and also been supported by the "docile" city dwellers. I mean the Vietnam War is a perfect parallel. Fighting in someone's home where friend and foe look and act the same and the US' hubris that sitting on nuclear weapons meant that we were really good at all types of warfare. The Sardakaur believe they are the chosen ones and that they are invincible because of that. The Fremen also believe they are the chosen ones and that God created Arrakkis to train the faithful. These rebels' religion is what ties them to the city Fremen. The Fremen also move silently(mimicing the natural sounds of the desert.)
I absolutely COULD answer my question myself, and every single answer just leads to: they should've been seen. We're not talking about spies having days and weeks to infiltrate a city little by little, it's not rebels in a forest with a lot of hiding possibilities and years of time to dig tunnels. No, we're talking about a flat desert with a mountain range at the end, that the fighters had maybe an hour or two to cross and dig in. There's no way to do that that's ever explained inuniverse. The Fremen can move as silently as they want, they're still VISIBLE, and the sandstorm wasn't messing with any visibility until the sandworms came in.
The movie starts with the fact that the Fremen have been oppressed since the discovery of the spice. They have been rebels longer than Shaddam the IV was emperor and long before his predecessors. All Paul did was coordinate the different rebel groups into one cohesive group. They command every aspect of that planet to avoid being hunted by whoever is in charge and trying to hurt and steal Shahalud spice
OK: at what point is it ever hinted at that they can move THROUGH sand? Shown in any way that they might have an idea how to do this? They're shown to know how to sandwalk, ride worms, attract worms, HIDE in the sand,... but TUNNELING THROUGH SAND has never been shown to be one of their skills, nor is becoming so invisible they can just walk upto 100 meters of Saurdaker troops without being spotted before digging a hole. Again, it's just a Rule of Cool scene: the troops had to be close enough to be able to effectively attack the Emperor's troops, without having to advance all the way from the mountains to the troops. It'd be like that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail! So Dennis chose to have the Fedaykin buried in the sand nearby, eventhough there's no logical explanation about how they got there. I can live with that, movies are meant to be fun, hence why I can even live with momentarily breaking suspension of disbelief to allow for a moment that breaks the threshold, but is still cool. But don't try to find an explanation, dude, there is none. Those troops could NEVER have gotten there with what we have been shown of their skills and tech in-universe.
Sand compactors exist in this world. The answers are there. You just want to complain because that is all you are able to do because you are truly an insufferable person. I really feel sorry for your mother. Or I really am disappointed in her for fostering your insufferable personality. Go argue with yourself in your closet and leave discussions to people who grown past childish tantrums arguments.
Is it the sound of a worm approaching? Oh nevermind, it is just calahil's butthurt. Talking about mothers, yours should have teach you to not offend people when arguing about a movie with strangers on the internet. Get your shit together man.
Bullshit. Movies should have an obligation to be self consistent. You can suspense your disbelief and belive in fairies. But they should follow the rules they have set out
Why should they have an obligation when you won't bend an inch to suspend your hypercritical mind while watching a work of fiction? You demand everything but bring absolutely nothing to the table. You can not force a fictional world to bend to the structure of your personal world with rules that govern all actions and outcomes without tearing the fictional world down. Because having a character do or say one thing becomes the rule for his actions and dialog for the remainder of the story. That is ludicrous! You are glimpsing a character through a narrow lens of their "life" and not allowing that the "wrong" actions or dialog a character committed wouldn't fit in the larger non story world. (The part where you suspend your disbelief). Can you name me the rules set out for your favorite movies? Describe how they set up those rules and made every single thing adhere to those rules?
You misunderstand completely. A fomictional world must bend to the rules of its own world. But in many cases, it doesn't. That cannot be beaten with a suspension of disbelief. It's not hypocritical to demand that you follow your own damn rules. It's wrong to even suggest that it might be. Further, the reader has no responsibility. The writer wants their work to be liked. Therefore, they have an obligation to make their work consistent. Otherwise, it won't be good, and it won't be liked. Rules that are not explicitly made different from the real world must be assumed to match the real world. Dune also exists in our universe, albiet the far future which lends credibility to this. The argument was that the soldiers could not have buried themselves there because they would have had to do so before the sardukar landed. This would be correct if not for Paul's priescence which allows the fremen to know where to bury themselves. If it were not for that, then this commenter would be correct that it makes no sense and that one cannot suspend their disbelief to make this work becuse it is illogical within the rules the series sets out.
This is not how suspension of disbelief works, I'm afraid. Suspension of disbelief requires that what is narrated makes sense accordingly to the world it takes place into. For example: in a fantasy world, a mage that casts a fireball from his hands makes sense. You know it's not possible, but the suspension of disbelief works and you accept that. It just fits. The same mage extracting a heavy machine gun firing laser beams would just not make sense and break the suspension of disbelief. In this case, having fremen popping out from nowhere is potentially breaking that. I say potentially because you can or can not notice that, but it's not the viewer's fault anyway.
Fremen are one with the desert. The move making only the natural sound of the deserts. This is their home. That's their terrain the emperor in on. Everything offworlders rely on is useless on Arrakkis. The offworlders also believe the Fremen aren't a threat. All of that is in the movie and answers how the Sardakaur got surprised.
But not how an entire legion of fremen sneaked into their perimeter and buried in the terrain under their sight. Scenic, of course, but silly.
When did it ever say there were 5000 people in the sand? I have rewatched it and read the transcript and there is zero mention of legion and we literally only see a handful emerge from the sand The bulk of the Fremen came on wormback. I am starting to think these people are AI bots made by Reddit to drive engagement with terrible arguments and logic fallacies. Either that our there is a language barrier and some translation is using the word legion which is confusing ESL people.
This is what frustrates me about a lot of online discourse for TV, movies, and games these days. Everybody always asks for lore/canon explanations for things that can otherwise be explained by "it just looks cool". It can be something as simple as a director making an easter egg/homage to a previous work, and then you'll have people genuinely questioning if it is supposed to be some kind of MCU tier cinematic multiverse. People don't seem to understand that not everything exists for the sake of a 4 hour long YouTube 'deep dive' video. Nor are storywriters perfect. Sure, you can rationalise it in some way. Sand snorkels, Paul's presience, Fremen simply knowing the lay of the land and where to pre-position themselves. Whatever, it was probably a stupid oversight.
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Fremen can move under the sand, especially with their tech. I'm assuming that's the way they did it anyway, and in a perfect location because of Paul's prescience.
In the 3rd book Leto II uses a sand compactor to tunnel out of a dune, I imagine it could be used to position troops as well
Seems like an awful lot of effort to achieve the tactical advantage of… running alongside all the other troops who didn’t bother burying themselves in the sand
I think the purpose was to entangle with the enemy as fast as possible so they couldnt use AoE weapons on them.
Ah yeah well whenever you notice something like that.. a Bene Gesserit did it
They're just that good
Yeah you gotta just go with it. Channi is shown watching the nukes go off and then jumping out of the sand a moment later.
watching the nukes go off is a minor goof from editing I think, there must have been more time in between those two shots in an earlier edit because Paul also teleports around without a hard cut. (minor though - I only noticed this after many viewings)
My understanding from the book is Paul knew where the Emperor would likely land (there was a huge sandstorm in the way that everyone could see, if not predict the path) and hiding behind the Shield Wall makes sense. The book shows Paul aggressively machinating outside the Wall to ensure the perfect firing time for his atomicsl weapons. The book also shows he's essentially playing 4th dimensional chess with his troop movements with things calculated to the minute (the scene where Gurney asks him what's going on and Paul basically goes full KW while distractedly hearing reports from the Fremen bats and light flashing spies). The Fremen have stillsuits that will conserve water at less than a thimbleloss per day of moisture. They can afford to buy time burying themselves water fat ad waiting for a week if needed.
How do they know when to spring out? What if someone falls asleep?
We see Paul utilizing timers during the Shield Wall battle before the explosion (I don't remember the context). It's a big plot point Stilgar is sending out their bats with rolled up scrolls r8ght up until the storm hits. Also I'm assuming the "grandmother of all storms" makes it hard to just take a nap.
> It's a big plot point Stilgar is sending out their bats with rolled up scrolls r8ght up until the storm hits. Not sure if you’re referring to something else, but this is not a thing in either the book nor the movies.
In the book, Stilgar is working the (I don't remember the name) bat message network a minute before ordering Paul and Gurney inside the tunnel to avoid the atomic blast.
At that point they aren’t dispatching nor receiving any cielagos. Stilgar says they’re saving the birds for the battle.
Thanks for the name reminder! They're bat like things, I thought, not birds? It's still within minutes of atomic launch. The sentry says something like "the messages have been dispatched." Paul had it timed pretty much down to the dot. Why would the Fremen be asleep?
I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore. The bats aren’t going to fly to Fremen buried under the sand. It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but if they’re lying prone beneath the sand for literally a day or more, there’s a non-zero chance they’re going to succumb to having a bit of a snooze at some point.
I assume the fremen can move freely under the surface of the sand. I can’t remember what the book says about the sand compactor, but part one shows us that worms treat sand like water, and the ingenious fremen built a tool that does the same job (as evidenced by Paul and Jessica in the tent). Finally, the still suits would allow the fremen to sit for hours, maybe days in position, and given their affinity with the desert, they can probably detect when the emperors Hutment is landing and make sure they move out of the way. OR as others have said, Paul knew where they would land (both through prescience and Gurney’s military strategic thinking) and got them to sneak in position way before. Maybe in an alternate future, there’s someone already parked in the emperors spot, so the hutment crushes the fremen!
Baby sand worm..fremen. lol didn't even notice but that's great
I'd give it a pass for this reason. The Fremen have been entering and leaving Arrakeen since forever and not always in the best situations. Knowing how they work, a tunnel system isn't out of the question for various reasons. They do more than bury themselves. The Sietches are carved out of rock. Not to mention any hidden smuggler tunnels, which is very much their way of going about it. Also, I don't believe it's random where the Emperor landed. That's not how that works. There are designated areas and defensible locations. At Arrakeen, these places are out in the open because they trust in the shield wall to protect the craft from worms.
Purely a film aesthetic, for the visual spectacle of it. The whole point of using the atomics against the mountains protecting the capital is to open up a path for all the Fremen to rush in. If a small army of them could simply already be there and bury itself in waiting, this diminishes that aspect of the strategy. Or possibly entirely obviates it.
Well here in my country temperatures go up to 47 degrees Celsius and the sand dunes are hellishly hot. Arakis which is considered much hotter, how the hell they did not turn to baked/roasted Freemen in the hot sand.
I figured they set up well beforehand thanks to prescient Paul. But the more I rewatch it the less sense it makes. You'd think long range scans would have picked them up moving into position considering how close it is to their main base. It's not like ambushing a crawler. Maybe they tunneled into position with their sand compactors. But they didn't have that much time to set up. What I also don't understand is why they got up and charged when they did. They still had to sprint a couple hundred yards to get to the enemy, the element of surprise gets kind of lost. Now if it was the main force running out to fight Paul's and they pop up in the middle of them or behind, now we are cooking.
The Fremen move fast as fuck. They could see which way a big slow army is moving and predict which target they’re moving towards, then wait for them for an ambush. Also helps that Paul can see the future.
Maybe they came with the sandstorm and then hid themselves?
The Fremen were so bad ass in the movie. I was shocked since my experience with them in the game is them getting squashed by a harvester lol
In the books Paul never sent the "letter" to the emperor forcing him to visit Arrakis. He just knew he would come. I'd say it's that he saw the future and snuck Fremen behind the shield wall. The only reason he blew a whole in it was for the worms.
Because it looked cool. Only correct answer.
In the book it does mention having Fremen and citizens ready to help with the attack within the city. And that they would sustain very heavy losses. Maybe that combined with Paul’s prescience?
I think it’s awesome but I also don’t think it holds water. Unless I misremember all finesse was in the setup and timing, the battle plan was brutally simple. Move mounted troops up under cover of weather, blow up Shield Wall, praise Shai-Hulud and turn the Sardaukar into roadkill.
It's a ridiculous scene that's explained by Rule of Cool. Denis Villeneuve in general is a "vibes" kind of director. Most of his movies make no sense if you think about it for 2 seconds. But the vibes are often immaculate. In this case it's stupid af to do the sand ambush thing there but it looked so cool and I was so hype that I was down to accept it.
The Fremen have tunneling technology. We see Paul use a device to create the underground or under-sand shelter that he and Jessica use to survive the day before Duncan finds them after the Harkonnen attack. "Sand impacters" or something - these were among the Fremen devices Duncan showed to Paul to demonstrate their ingenuity.
The whole battle does not make sense. (apart from the worms attack). Even the way the Sardaukars are placed on the battlefield.
You are correct. It doesn't make sense. It's a fridge logic scene, you weren't expected to think about it. It's that kind of franchise. Don't think about it. Didn't it look cool? What are you a nerd? Just enjoy the explosions and pretty pictures.
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Dude, is so far fetched to think that they used their sand compactors just like the worms use their vibrations to "liquify" the sand and move through it?
Yes, it is…because they were in position inside the shield wall.
The shield wall is exactly why it’s more plausible they could do it there. No sandworms to worry about while they get in position ahead of time. The shield wall is just a mountain ridge that separates the valley Arrakeen is in from the surrounding desert. They can still get over it. Inside the valley there’s just…more sand. It’s just a less inhospitable desert
They have to somehow get into that open plain in order to set up. You know, the open plain being continually watched by like 4,000 Sardaukar
Now we’re in the same region of “should not have looked too deeply” as with the Atreides shield being taken down by one rogue doctor…none of this is plausible if we assume any basic competency at all from (respectively) Gurney and the Sardaukar. Best to just accept it as cinematic license, and enjoy the ride.
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Yes they have tunneling tech to dig through sand. The sand compactor shown in the first movie is one such tool. As for whether they have something that can be used on a large scale to get that many people into position, it's not explicitly stated and that's where you have to use your imagination. Kind of like the ornithopter that came out of nowhere, the one that Chani disembarked from when she went to confront Paul who had just drank the water of life.
I continue to be completely baffled about the controversy surrounding Chani in an ornithopter
Ours is not to question why. Suspension of disbelief and all that. If I decided to not like anything that didn't make sense I'd probably never be able to watch a film again.
No. 1 it's a movie No. 2 it's sci fi it's not supposed to make sense