she didnt seem villainous to me tho? just manipulative. and since her desires clash so hard with pauls their relationship is somewhat antagonistic towards each other but she definitely didnt seem like a villain to me
@@killerqueeenie she manipulates an entire indigenous population into fighting and dying for her and Paul, if it was framed from almost any other angle it would make her more explicitly villainous imo
At 5:06 you said you're not gonna call Paul the protagonist, but that's literally what he is. He is the protagonist of the story. It doesn't matter if what he does is good or bad, but he is the focal point of our story, so he is our protagonist.
I was going to mention this as well. "Protagonist" isn't the same as "hero" or "good guy" of the story. It just means "main character". Many stories have protagonists who are outright evil.
Totally disagree. If Herbert had intended Jessica to be a villain, then he would have presented her as such. Herbert wasn't just "some hack" that didn't get the (his) character right - he was a literary genius who is a sci-fi flag bearer.
Hmm kind of difficult to agree when HERBERT HIMSELF as confirmed that he meant for Jessica and Paul to both be deeply flawed, and was disappointed that many readers saw them as heroes - lit 5 mins of research can save you from being heinously wrong @@Eric-1701
@@Eric-1701 No ones saying Herbert failed? Jessica is a villian. The movie is less subtle with it buuuut that's actually for the best given time constraints and the fact it's harder to do internal perspective in film. The movie focuses more on how her actions look outside from her own perspective and that's the correct way to do it in a movie. It does make for less nuance but I don't think it's to the genuine detriment of the film
Jessica went full Bene Gesserit, she has no issue doing what she did due to her training, this is what the Sisterhood do. She just did it independently of Mohiam. The changes involving Jessica, Fenring and Mohiam anticipate what's learned about the Sisterhood in future books. I thought Chani was the bigger change. Paul avoiding his destiny was a simplification of his struggles in the book that was only hinted at with his mention of a narrow path.
And of course there is in that "narrow path" a clearly hidden message to readers of the book series that this path is ultimately a "golden" one that, due to Paul's feet of clay, he condemns his own son to taking - the most "Greek tragedy" part of the Atreides saga as told in Dune. BTW, this is presumably why Herbert chose to take Paul's family name from Greek mythology - where it refers to a series of related myths (themselves "adapted" for the stage by Classical Greek playwrights) about a multi-generational curse of the gods inflicted upon the House of Atreus, which in Greek is rendered as the "Atreides". The lore in Dune goes VERY deep...
@@PeloquinDavid Perhaps. Remember though that Paul's narrow path is not the Golden Path, especially in Dune. We learn during the desert meeting between Paul and Leto II in Children that Paul's plan for humanity was one leading to stagnation. Leto II's Golden Path requires a much longer stewardship and the sacrifice of transformation and immortality. Paul was clearly aware of the Golden Path in that meting and knows exactly what Leto II has chosen. Of course that's after a lot of retcon in the books between Dune and Messiah then Messiah & Children, which Villeneuve is aware of. He's certainly read them after his treatment of the Bene Gesserit in Dune 2. So maybe it's a nod to it.
@@dorbie I don't recall there being any mention of a "narrow path (or a parh of any kind) in the first book, but it's been a year or so since I last re-read it... So I just assumed it was a coded message from Villeneuve to readers of the extended series. Now that you mention it, I have always just assumed that when Paul took the Water of Life he became aware of the "Golden Path" (along with many others). By the time he exiled himself to the desert years later, he presumably saw it as having become one of the "better" of a bad lot of remaining paths forward. I interpreted his exile as an act of cowardice (befitting a Greek tragedy) that left the enormous burden of what "needed to be done" to be borne by Leto II.
@@PeloquinDavid The channel Quinn's Ideas has a lot of excellent content on this. Essentially, what Paul saw first was what was in the immediate few years, and by the time everything was in motion, there were no paths available that would stop the Fremen Jihad. It wasn't until during or after the Jihad that he saw the Golden Path, and that was because the Prescient Eye could only go so far at first. He need to train it, get use to it, grow more powerful (it's even thought that Leto II and the later gholas of Duncan Idaho had much greater vision in the Prescient Eye). Once he could see far enough ahead, he saw the end of days. The Golden Path was the only way to strengthen mankind enough to prepare them to survive what was to come, as all other paths led to total human extinction. Problem was the Golden Path entailed exactly everything that Leto II did, Paul knew that, and refused to do it because it would mean giving up his humanity. Basically, in the end, the Ixians would improve upon the hunter-seekers, giving them advanced AI, self-replicating capabilities, and the powers of Prescience. The hunter seekers would then go rogue and prove to be completely unstoppable, and would exterminate all of mankind. So Leto ruled the Imperium for thousands of years with an iron fist, making humanity long to explore and be free, all the while breeding the Atreides line until he created a new gene that his those with it from the Prescient Eye entirely. With this gene in place, it could then be spread amongst the human race ensuring that when the hunter-seekers came, there would be a surviving remnant of humanity. He also mentions in the 4th book that he had been actively working to prevent that future from coming sooner, and it would've already occurred long ago had he not been intervening. This was all Frank Herbert's stuff. Brian Herbert's expanded Dune goes in a different direction.
@@PeloquinDavid The Golden Path is a retcon in Children. I agree that up until Children my recollection is that it's all about navigating nexuses of unpredictable inflection points between an otherwise lucid landscape of choice. Paul was trapped by his visions and every option was bad, ultimately he sacrificed his happiness for humanity's survival. His existence as the Messiah became a problem and he didn't want to stick around to be tempted into servitude by a Chani Ghola. It's never really explained why he took the stoneburner to the face but it probably has a lot to do with setting himself on a path where he ultimately removed himself from the equation the traditional Fremen way.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Lady Jessica wanted a quiet and peaceful life with Duke Leto, Paul, and Alia. But the Bene Geserit wanted the Duke dead and Paul to be a girl to enact their plans. So Lady Jessica decided to make the Kwisatz Haderach (however that’s spelled) with her hand on the wheel instead of the emperor. It’s a cautionary tale about long laid plans, building prophecies, and conspiracies.
I think her film version's proactive nature was to make crystal clear just how artificial the prophecy was, because audiences WOULD miss it if there wasn't someone on screen being an overtly villainous manipulator. They didn't want there to be a question that maybe there actually was a prophecy, that this was another straightforward Chosen One Trope. In prose you can be overt with narration of the mechanics of your plot, in cinema the same overt methods are just characters doing things plainly. With media literacy how it is nowadays, that was completely necessary.
It isn't media literacy "nowadays", it is media literacy ever. If you need more evidence, go look at the movie Starship Troopers. There has almost never been a more overt satirization that was completely missed by virtually everyone who consumed the work, and that was 25 years ago.
@@just_gut Every film critic missed this "satire" becouse it was badly done. thats all. If you want to know better anti-nazi satire read "War with the Newts" by Karel Čapek (or his other works which are perfect example of anti-militaristic/anti-emperialistic satie).
@@sychuan3729 No, every film critic missed it because their job doesn't train them to look for serious themes underlying very unserious movies. The number of non-standard elements that critics missed back in the day because they went in with a pre-conceived notion about the film could dam the oceans.
As a person who didn’t read the books, I got that nuanced presentation. Remember, in the movie she didn’t want to do it but the fremen were gonna throw them out if she didn’t replace their queen mother. So it was clear she was trying to survive.
yeah i definitely didnt view her as an antagonist in the films narrative. it definitely felt more nuanced than that for me too, as someone who hasnt read the books
Yes. To me it never she never felt like the villain, she's just a mother trying to protect her family. In Dune I she realized that she was disposable to the Bene Gesserit and they wouldn't protect her or her family, so naturally the most optimal way to save them was to manipulate the prophecy in her favor. She is selfish but not evil
@@thearcanamodernau8130and for me, how much can you really blame a mother for being selfish about the lives and well being of her family. The movie did a great job of conveying the themes of the story without a 1:1 exact adaptation
Well, I feel like she was motived by her survival and protection of Paul, like you all say. ... At least before she drank the water of life. After she drank the water of life, she changed. Which makes sense, she has memories of various people, including Bene Gesserit, in her family tree, memories that influence her. She's a lot more manipulative and ruthless, because of her transformation and awakening of all those memories.
It's not just Jessica, is Jessica woven together with all the reverend mothers before her. The Water changed her, it's why the other reverend mother now respects her, she sees her as someone powerful enough to steer history itself.
@@daisystrait it is not clarified in the movie, but the previous fremen rm transfers all her knowledge and cumulative personas of the past rms to Jessica, so yeah, in a way she is influenced by old rms, who actually believed in the prophecy and/or wanted to fight back the millennia-long oppression
@@evan12697no, if you're a good enough director the full release movie IS the directors cut lmao. Deleted scenes are what DvD and box releases are for, not for whole recuts that take up extra budget. Directors cuts only work when there's been so much studio interference that it completely goes against what the director sought out to do.
I hadn't read the novel (I've started it since I saw Part Two) when I saw the new film, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Jessica (who was my favourite character in the first film). And there was one passage that particularly stood out for me thanks to Rebecca Ferguson's acting: After Paul manages to ride the shai-hulud, one of the fremen comes to tell Jessica and her "followers". All the women start talking about it excitedly, as if it's confirmation that Paul is the One. And where Rebecca Ferguson is brilliant is that we see Jessica's whole thought process in a few moments: observation, realisation (she's managed to convince them), satisfaction, ambition, confirmation of what she now has to do and finally she communicates with Alia. This is where I really saw the transformation of the character and where she really becomes the antagonist in my opinion. I loved the film and Jessica's character development, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with her in the next film.
@@OrenPanitch Yeah, this is correct. One of the great things about the novel is that you get a sense of much larger forces at play, and these people are caught in the maelstrom. Paul is at the center of it, and trying to harness it in a way, but he's also swept up in the currents as he tries to ride them. Jessica plays her part as she must, but it's not like she's trying to wreck them all.
@Oren She is an antagonist in this movie as Paul didn’t want to be the messiah that starts a holy war, but Jessica does and her actions are meant to lead them towards that. Yes she’s more morally grey than outright evil but antagonist just means opposing the protagonist (which just means main character).
Yeah she's not evil in either book or movie, just mostly amoral. The reason she can be seen as an antagonist in the book (despite wanting to help and protect Paul) is that she started him and is continuing to push him down the path that he knows will lead to war. The main struggle for Paul isn't against the Harkonens or the emperor, but rather against the path he sees before him (i.e. the prophecy). So the movie making Jessica an overt antagonist is a way to help make clear what the true struggle for Paul is about. I think it's a great way to adapt from book to film, as the wonderful complexity and subtlety on that point in the book would be far too easy to miss or misinterpret in a movie.
@@MrSupergingerman you need to read more of the series. He's not fighting the prophecy. He's fighting the future that is inevitable. It's why he eventually pussies out and leaves it to his son to inherit
How can it be better? They turned the climax of the book into a child play. It doesnt explain the abomination because they said it for Paul. It was a stupid change.
Tbh aside from the ending and Alia, I didn’t really notice the changes because everything they changed was more to adapt a written story to a film and they did it in a way that was genuinely faithful to the source. Also if you consider Alia there isn’t really a way to get an actor for her because of how young she is and how capable she is. Also I feel like with Messiah they’re going to end it with Paul walking into the desert after he goes blind.
Huge agree. Having read the books many times I think the story telling across the two movies is so well done it was mostly only on reflection after watching that I really realised how many things got changed. (Yes there are very glaring changes but it does a good job of wrapping you up in the moment). Save for a few things that make me wonder how they’ll portray a few things in Messiah I think all the changes are understandable for an adaptation.
I also noticed how different Chani is in the movies, but in a good way! In the books she's a flat, almost spineless character. In the movies she's actually fleshed out with a bit of an arc and has a lot more agency. Considering how important she is to the story I think that is a huge improvement.
@@MrSupergingermanlol that's not true at all. In the books she was an unique character. Now she is Zendaya. The typical strong female character with masculine characteristics. Lazy and unoriginal writing. Denis just couldn't afford to have a female character that is devoted to Paul and is so supportive of him that she stays with him even while he marries a different woman. It's completely changing the story and over developing one character while trashing the rest. If they would at least do it right and not bash you over and over again with how strong and smart and not gullible she is like we didn't get it the first three times.
Yes and Tim Blake Nelson actually filme his role and it got cut, which SUCKS. Sadly, this movie, although being only one book (like the Hobbit) well could have been three films (NOT like the Hobbit).
@@lenakataeva7525 count fenring is the emperor's only true advisir for a long time. Childhood friends, due to their mothers and eventually fenring is one of the best Assassin's in the empire. Every good decision the emperor ever made, fenring told him to do it type beat. Real interesting character. Decides not to kill Paul at the emperor's orders bc he was tired of not being listened to. Fun assassin.
A very interesting take. I read the film plot as her heeding the call while Paul resists. If anything, we're seeing her as an antagonist through Paul's eyes, but not as a villain.
@@sertakiWhere it gets a little weird is that for all of Frank Herbert's "messiahs are bad and Paul made a mistake" talk, ultimately a huge part of his Dune novels is that God, the collective unconscious of humanity, really really wanted a genocide. Leto showing up and going "OK, no more messiahs" was one form of an inevitable conclusion. Part of Paul's tragedy is that he THINKS he sees a way to cheat around the inevitable, but keeps turning back onto the path. He goes for his revenge, which was following the path he saw. He has children and makes damn well sure to keep them alive, which was RESISTING the path he saw (in a sense) and only learns when he succeeds what he's condemned the world to. Frank's desire to push some crazy Jungian "genetic memory" stuff waters down the surface-level point he tried to make.
The biggest issue I have with the differences is almost completely wiping away the space guild from this portion of this adaptation. And it’s a glaring weakness because the only reason Arrakis has relevance in that literary universe is the fact the spice makes space travel possible. The ending of this movie doesn’t make sense without giving the navigators a prominent role. The threat of destroying the spice is key to the downfall of Emperor, and exercising power over the houses.
Right? Those fremen are not going to be leading anyone to paradise until they have the guild to take them interstellar. The omission of the guild and that fact that the entire movie takes place over 8 months or so are by far my biggest criticisms of the film.
CHOAM and the Guild are so criminally underrepresented in this adaptation. My favorite scene in the first novel is when it's revealed at the end that those around the emperor have the blue-in-blue eyes and are taking Paul's side showing just how powerful the spice is.
Agreed. They could have included them without adding too much more time. A couple of short interactions in the first film and then weaving in a few mentions in both films would have been enough to covertly establish how powerful and far reaching they are. Then having them show up in the throne room would reveal the mystery and raise the stakes that much higher.
Agreed. I already understood the role of spice in the setting, but I honestly can't say if that's because of the first movie or absorbing the concept from nerd culture osmosis. My friend didn't already know and definitely didn't glean it from p2.
The little blurb at the start of Pt. 1 about space travel being impossible without melange is doing a TON of work. Too much. It's a side-effect of Davis Villeneuve being a dude who hates dialogue being asked to direct a story that's originally, like, 80-90% dialogue plus a load of appendixes.
SyFy Dune miniseries did the best job in portraying the world of Dune and was VERY faithful to the book despite being shorter than Dune 1 and 2 by a full 1 hour!!! Yes, SyFy production was TERRIBLE, with bad actors and costumes with horrendous special effects, but as an overall story.....far better than this. And ONE HOUR shorter!
My read was that, since she is still carrying Alia in this version (and carrying on conspiratorial conversations with her), she is under the influence of Alia in a similar way to how Alia is increasingly under the influence of other voices in the future books. I say "under the influence", because Alia in no way controls her, but Alia encourages her worst - most basic, most primal, most savage - urges. I noted that Ferguson's portrayal of Jessica to be less fearful or cautious after she drinks the Water and Alia awakens. As for the full arc, my bet is that Villeneuve is going to cap off the series with Paul foiling the attempt on the twins' life and retiring to the desert to be The Wanderer.
I loved what they did with Chani in the movie, too. She still doesn't exactly move the plot anywhere but the lens she offers us in the movie really drives home the point of Dune much more overtly than what we got in the novel.
Her changed I couldnt stand. Part of their relationship is the bonding over both of them loosing their fathers and trauma they suffered from this, which was destroyed by NOT making Chani the Daughter of Liet as she is in the book. Dennis could have done everything he did in the movie without messing with Chani and Pauls relationship. In the book as well, Chani understood the political marriage was necessary to solidify Pauls claim to the throne and quel the Houses. Again this was trashed, she just leaves throwing a tantrum. It also paints the next book into a corner if she is gone with Chani giving birth to Leto II and Ghanima.
@@AEGISDEFENSE I can definitely respect that. For me, I always considered the core of their relationship to be Paul's immersion into Fremen culture so I didn't really mind. By extension, her reaction to the political marriage fit this take on the character as she is generally less blind to the influence Paul has on her people. I share your concern over Leto II and Ghanima, though. CoD is my favorite in the series and it's looking pretty tough to adapt following this movie continuity. However, it's my understanding that Denis only wishes to adapt up to Messiah so if he intends to conclude the story there I won't complain. Hopefully we'll get a proper Children and God Emperor adaptation one day but to me this is just another awesome version of Dune that I can engage with independent of the books rather than a straightforward 1:1 adaptation.
@@AEGISDEFENSE Agreed . Chani almost ruined the movie for me. Paul lost his father, is mad at his mother and the bene , is without his mentors Duncan and Gurney. All he has is Chani and her understanding. Her devotion to him as he deals with the crap dealt to him is a wonderful love story. This movie makes her out to be the opposite. someone who makes jokes while his mother is taking the water of life... (since she doesnt believe in anything she is sure his mother will die , but just laughs at Stilgar's faith) she hates his decisions in the movie and leaves him when he needs her the most. She is such a strong female character in the novels.
It was a smart move to keep Alia entirely out of this movie, aside from fetus form It would've been hell to cast a child actress that could deliver a convincing murder
No matter how good the rest of the movie was, this is still such a disappointment to me. When the movie was first announced this was the scene I was most curious and excited to see adapted and instead they just... didn't.
It was the climax of the book and they turned it into a child play. Even the word "abomination" SAID for ALIA in the book, not Paul. A weak screenplay!
I did not at all think of Jessica as an antagonist until this video, and realize now how much was said in the very first scene between Paul and Jessica. A son, needing water that should be the duty of a parent to provide, but instead she calls upon him against his tendencies to take up the mantle of coercion against free will to compel her to do it. In experiencing her free will being removed, she also feels the elation of her own success, and they share this special water. The only way they can survive.
...Damn, that really does foreshadow the whole arc between her and Paul, huh? Keeps shoving her son off of cliffs while a rope is tied between him and her ankle. Intentionally.
Thank you for mentioning that My mother is my enemy line. That is clearly the foundation of the change and makes it clearer to a cinema audience. The darkness of the BG is so clear in the film.
I think this is part of an overall trend of changes where the characters are put more at odds with each other (the same with Chani being against the prophecy). I think this is a sensible choice, since it lets them put a lot of the conflict into dialogue, where it was part of characters internal narrative.
Having read Dune YEARS ago, I'm totally baffled at how they switched up the characters. Still tho, from what I remember, this feels like a fresh and STILL faithful adaptation. Like, yea, I remember reading Jessica's character as not actually an antagonist but more of a morally grey-but-loving mother. There are so many things that Villeneuve did that play out so good. His changes are subtle and don't take too much from the novel AND STILL makes the film feel faithfully adapted. Honestly, cant wait to watch it a second time
7:50 That early scene where she’s telling Alia her plans as she looks upon a group of frightened Fremen is the most haunting scene in the movie for me.
I've had this discussion a lot this week: Jessica doesn't really force anything, she's quite subtle in her methods (barring 3 specific scenarios). Her role is seemingly more to remove obstacles from Paul's path, more than to actually push or guide him down said path.
Another thing is, it's been a while since I read any of the novels, but I don't think there was any interactions between Irulan and the Reverend Mother in the original Dune, but there definitely was in Dune Messiah. So these interactions in the film seem to be setting up her story nicely for the Dune Messiah film.
I have a decades old memory of reading the book(s) and a spattering of lore picked up over the years, and i really didn't see Jessica as an antagonist. She comes off as manipulative (no more than any bene gesserit) but her ends don't seem overtly evil. Really seems mostly important to moving the plot forward and upping the stakes.
Yep shes an aristocrat she is looking after Pauls interests and people, like the fremen, are pawns. She does see atreides men such as gourney as part of her inner circle, but everyone outside...pwans
I mean your perspective on Jessica also reveals how you feel about aristocracy. If Nobles have a right to impose their will on commoners, than Jessica did nothing wrong.
@@rdkap42ridiculous comparison, because "rights" have nothing to do with this. She is bound between two choices: Use what the bene gesserite left or die. Nobles in real life have far more options than this. If anything this reveals you don't think shit through and don't have a strong foundation on which to critique nobles... which is sad really, cause they suck ass.
Lady Jessica was my favorite character in this sequel. Her dynamic with the unborn Alia is SO creepy but also really well done. That scene where she realizes she can convert the most fearful, and then when she takes de facto control of the Bene Gesserit at the end was amazingly well acted and captured. Her face when she communicates that line "You should have believed" just felt so vindicative but also satisfying.
Children of Dune would be great to have what would be one of the most off putting visuals ever. That is what the world needs, some kind of Cronenberg film of worm/human metamorphosis.
People who haven't read the books are already not going to be ready for movie 3 aka Dune Messiah. They're REALLY not going to be ready for Children of Dune.
Frank Herbert wrote Dune: Messiah because he felt like the themes of the first were not picked up on or completely misunderstood. I think that's ample enough proof that even great authors are not experts of their own work sometimes, at least not in the way we think. They're too close to the material and get so precious about every minute detail that they lose sight of the big picture. It's GOOD when an adapter can understand a piece of work so well that they can more clearly express what a writer is trying to convey.
This is probably a nitpick, but "antagonist" and "villain" are not interchangeable. She is absolutely an antagonist by definition- a good person and even the more correct person can be an antagonist. They are just the character whose goals are in conflict with the protagonist (the pov/focus or main character).
Alia is sleeping with Duncan in Dune Messiah, so I don't know if it's right to say that she's a "child". She is young, certainly, perhaps as young as 14 (in the books, two years, possibly more, pass between her birth and the end of Dune, then twelve more years before Dune Messiah), but at least an adolescent-and given her Other Memories, it's arguable as well that she ever really was anything other than a composite adult, which is part of the problem. She's definitely a complicated character to think about.
Kinda not really though, Alia's personality is at first primarily Jessica's due to her absorbing Jessica's memories and emotions. Alia's inner-mind version of Jessica protects her at first from the other lives, but then detaches from her mother after birth, which is when her personality becomes more and more shaped by the other lives inside her mind. While she's still with Jessica, Alia and Jessica are almost 1 character in a way just voicing some of Jessica's alternative thoughts.
I haven't heard anyone really talking about it, but in my opinion the best thing they did in the film was the events leading up to the final battle. In the book Paul takes the water of life kind of out of nowhere, then three weeks later he wakes up and has a vision of the emperor and the houses having showed up in orbit, and he goes to fight them. Then right as they're preparing to attack, he gets word that Sietch Tabr was attacked (offscreen) and feels that his child has been killed in the attack. Then he attacks. It feels very abrupt. It makes way more sense the way they did it in the film and really highlights Paul's reluctance to be a messiah and the change he goes through after taking the Water of Life. It feels much more like a giant action set piece. It also gives a more powerful impetus for deciding to accept his fate, it really feels like his hand was forced against his will by things he couldn't control (but were set in motion by the Bene Gesserit). I also like that he is shown rallying all the Fremen from the South, which doesn't happen in the book (some Fremen come to a council but we don't really get to see it). In the book as far as I could tell it was just his Fedaykin that attacked the emperor's tent.
I'm confused. Paul is obviously the protagonist. Protagonist just means the focus of the story. So that's Paul..An antagonist works against the protagonist, and I don't think Jessica is an antagonist in that sense. She's a villain, but so (ultimately) is Paul. Walter White in Breaking Bad is a protagonist, but he's obviously not a good guy.
Thanks for the comment. My read is: Paul wants to prevent the manifestation of the prophecy, this point demonstrated several times throughout the film. Jessica actively works to ensure he becomes the Kwisatz Haderarch despite Paul taking numerous preventative measures and plays into the Fremen belief, thus working in direct opposition to him.
@@kylesilagyistuffbut paul doesnt actually take any prevantative measures. He does everything to become the messiah, he just says "but i dont want to" first. Its WEAK writing and directing.
@archologyzero they talk about it more in the book, he bassically wants to walk as close to becoming the messiah as possible, without causing the jihad. After he drinks the worm juice he bassically realises he either does the jihad or everyone he loves dies, so he chooses the death of billions for his friends and family, who he bassically also stops caring about as people at the end of the book as well
Brillant review. Might be my fav of all the reviews, so far. I think it helps that you are a Dune "scholar" & I greatly appreciate your points. I too was a bit perplexed at the changes. My more irrtating was the change of Chani, who was his loving support in the novel, but more of a foil in the film. And, why didn't they have Leto II, or at least the pregnancy, happen at the end. At least that would've helped the audience understand that despite the upcoming marriage to the princess, Chani would remain prominent in Paul's life.
Well, in the book, at some point, the younger Fremen get so entranced by Paul's myth that they want him to challenge and kill Stilgar to replace him as their leader in the old Freme tradition. A Council is then organized, with Paul, Jessica and Stilgar playing a part to avoid this useless confrontation between Paul and Stilgar. Here is a quote from this passage : "Again, Paul raised his voice : 'You think it's time I called out Stilgar and changed the leadership of the troops!' Before they could respond, Paul hurled his voice at them in anger: 'Do you think the Lisan al-Gaib that stupid?' There was stunned silence. _He's accepting the religious mantle_, Jessica thought. _He must not do it !_" In this quote, it is clear that Jessica understands the potential catastrophe that Liet Kynes had also feared, such a candid, naive people like the Fremen under the influence of a leader that would be at once a messiah and a warmaster, and she rejects that. In the book, Jessica is the only character that is unflexibly motivated mainly by love (well, Yueh too ^^) : she disobeyed the Bene Gesserit for the love of her duke, she took disputable actions to save herself and Paul and ensure their survival out of love for her son and soon to be born daughter, she realised too late the effects of her taking the water of life on her daughter, but the scene describes her sending waves of love to Alia to try preserving her daughter's sanity, and she finally accepts and loves Chani, even having the last words of the novel with her "legally concubines, but really true wives" line. It is a sad perversion to turn this figure of love - yes, grey character of course, it's Dune - into some machiavelian figure of raw ambition.
Well she isn't a machiavelian figure of raw ambition in movies either. I feel like movies did show pretty well that majority of her actions are done for survival of her family. But it also shows that she is failable and she is not as insightful as Paul is. She still has the front she upholds - especially as she takes the role of Reverend Mother, she fully plays the role needed to maximise Paul's success (and to some extend she is also fueled by the spirits of Fremen women and Aila, she isn't the same woman anymore). But they give us enough scenes, where they showcase her actual care and real goals behind her machinations. That image of cold Reverend Mother, is mostly shown to us from Paul's perspective - it's there to showcase his own struggles and fears. But we do also get enough scenes from Jessica's perspective to show that she is doing it all in good faith and not just ambition. Even in those more ambitious and over the top scenes she has - where she tries to control Paul, at least for me this read as a mother still trying to nourish her own son and pick the best for him - push him in the direction, she believes will be the best for him (kinda falling back into the Bene Gesserit methods). It's like she still sees him as the inexperienced child he is at the very beginning of the story. It's that after they split - she still goes with the original plan they both kinda had and she doesn't see yet that he changed. At least not until the very end of the part 2. Like mentioned in the video - Jessica's actions always were pretty antagonistic. But they aren't presented clearly as such, because we are seeing the justifications and thoughts she has that pushed her to do them (namely love and survival instincts). In movie, where we commonly move from her - and instead focus on other characters like Paul or Chani, we can see a more broader view of her character and actions. We can see her from a different angle that are other characters. And I believe that is more in line with Herbert's original intention for Dune. People missed the nuance around Paul and Jessica and that's why he wrote Messiah. Movie directly already fixes for the "changes" Messiah makes.
@@mjm3091 That's also a valid point of view. Perhaps my more severe appreciation comes from unborn Alia. Perhaps some maternal aspect is lacking in my eyes.
I have read her differently. She is indeed driven by ambition, but this ambition is to protect her son and avenge her husband. To achieve that she is manipulating Fremen, of course, this is what she was trained for her whole life. She does not treat Fremen as equals, but she does not wish ill for them, realising her goals would help them tremendously. She is convinced this is the only way, and she is right. Paul ultimately chooses the same path, not manipulated by her, but due to circumstances which left him no other choice. Later he confirms it, having seen the future. Chani is angry for her, accuses her, but she simply is not right here, she is lashing out because she fells hopeless (and because Jessica can be quite unpleasant when it she feels she can). It is a trap in this movie that we like Paul but dislike Jessica. Jessica represents harsh reality which we and Paul do not wish to accept. This is really a sad story, a tragedy.
@@Tablis0 Certainly, but this weakens Jessica's becoming the Fremen Reverend Mother, with countless Fremen memores in her mind. The experience should at least slightly alter her relations with Fremen. Reverend Mother Ramallo's memories are truly Jessica's memories after the spice agony. Alia, due to that, is born true Fremen. Though you're right too, Jessica does keep her individuality and her own agency after the agony. I'm not sure why I don't like the movie take on the character. Didn't feel like Jessica for me.
you’re so well spoken! this is exactly how i’ve been trying to verbalize these changes to my friends who love the movies but haven’t read the books, thanks for sharing :)))
I also thought that Jessica was kinda the main character of the Dune original trilogy. Like she really took upon herself to make her son the KH for whatever means necessary. She is the reason her family is what it is ‘cause of her choice of having a boy.
Lady Jessica is the lioness there protecting her son. Moreover she is Bene Gesserit. Her choosing to give Duke Leto a son created the situation in which Paul becomes the Kwizats Hadderach absent Bene Gesserit control..
I saw the vocal changes at the end of Jessica's sentences to be her unborn daughter influencing her decisions, as she passionately believes in Paul's destiny as the chosen one. As much as Jessica hijacked the Bene Genesserit, her daughter hijacks her very body and mind.
I somewhat agree with most of your points but I would not say that she's an antagonist in both book AND movie. Like you said, her acts remain mostly the same in both version but what you did not mention (oversight?) is that in both medium, she inherits the memories of the past reverand mothers to the extent where she herselfs, despite her teachings, start believing aspects of the prophecy like faith. That is a core message of the first book in my opinion that translated superbly well in the movie with Alia still inside the woumb : despite knowing perfectly the calculated origin of the prophecy, the only way to exploit it lead inexorably to "blind" faith EVEN FOR HER ! It is as if the collective memory and faith of the previous generation uktimatly lead even the most secular of person on the same path. That's how dangerous religions and fanaticism can become : even those who planned them start believing fanaticly when the world becomes harsher than imagined. It is an absolutly omnipresent element of the human race, which is a key element of the sage like you said ! Hence, I would not really call her an antagonist in the movie but a tragic figure that is trapped in the doing of its own kin (Bene Gesserit) to the point of blurring the line between faith and political calculus. There usually is no real antagonist in tragedies but unfortunate souls that cannot escape a destiny of their own (and ancestors') doing. Great video nonetheless, have a good one !
This video made me realize that it’s very much a callback to the iconic scene from part 1 between Jessica and Leto-“I’m not asking his mother, I’m asking the Bene Gesserit”. The book very much deals with Jessica’s struggle with her split loyalties and desire to rebel against the will of the Bene Gesserit. But the movie has her really lean into that part of her identity, thus protecting Paul as both his mother and as an agent of the Bene Gesserit.
Can you do a video about the changes of Chani? I haven't read the books yet but I saw some discourse around the changes, and I'm interested what you think about it.
I saw Dune part two last night and I too though it was awesome. More than anything I love how it effectively takes you away to another world completely and as a person that loathes and is bored with modern blockbuster movies I was completely drawn into this movie from beginning to end. The time flew by and I wanted to see more as it came to an end. There were no fart jokes, whammin empowerment or woke messaging shoved in your face or slipped in to preach to you. I hope this movie sparks a new era in film making in Hollywood but dont hold your breath.
bruh the story is about rich families wanting to colonize arrakis to gain control of their important resource (quite literally a drug AND their version of space fuel). even the book wasnt that subtle but the movie is pretty much in your face about it
The best part about this post - Dune is actually woke AF 🤣 Two easy examples from this movie alone: women are the ones truly pulling the strings for the fate of the universe, and southern religious fundamentalists are portrayed as easy to manipulate...one of the main motifs of this whole franchise is "don't trust messiahs"
Count Fenring is like the Tom Bombadil of Dune. I get why they cut him out and it was objectively the right call, but I'm still mad I didn't get to see him "mmmmmm"-ing and "aahhhhhh"-ing all over the place 😄
The biggest change is Chani as it seems to lead to a completely different story in the third part. Chani was done so dirty in this adaptation that it would have been better to just leave her out completely.
How was she done dirty? This part of the story is told from her point of view and she actually has character development and her own agency. The character in the movie is about a million times more interesting than the one in the books who exists only as a device to impact Paul's emotions.
@@kmaguire7161 by reducing her unique character into your stereotypical lazily written strong female character with masculine characteristics that is no different from all the other lazily written strong female characters in the past 15 years. She did have her own agency and development in books, she just wasn't the main character. She was a great supporting character that was unique. Now she is just Zendaya. In the books she is very mature and emotionally stable, now she is just a girl from Brooklyn who can't control herself as no woman should be allowed to submit to a man who is a literal prophet to her people. Because that wouldn't be a good seller for the female audience. So we are bashed over and over again with how powerful she is, how she is not gullible, how hot-headed she is, and so on. Meanwhile, the emperor is greatly undeveloped. He's basically some random dude who does some random things, his daughter could have been explored much more even if you want to save her character mostly for the third part. Paul in the first hour and a half is changed to more of a typical teenage hero that we've seen 3 thousand times already so Zendaya can have more spotlight. Baron, Feyd, Rabban are all underdeveloped with the excuse that they were in the first part. Alia is basically scrapped, Hawat is gone, and Fenring is gone. Benne Geserit is like one of the most interesting groups in all fiction and while their scenes were great they could have been developed so much more. And they left out some major power groups like idk the spacing guild so the ending didn't even make that much sense compared to books. And all that just so we could have more and more scenes with Zendaya being the main character that weren't even done well as they were not continuously developing her character but bashing us with the same tropes over and over again.
I think the biggest change Id seen is where chani .and how they try to say she's upset with Paul .when it's her vision all along to change arrakkis along and father was known as keep of the change and not accepted usal as Mahdi even though she had visions of Paul as the Mahdi ??? I think they're just trying to kill the actress off
I think a major factor to the change (beyond creating drama for the back half of part 2 and for part 3) is she's meant to be a bit of a stand in for Frank Herbert and the point he wanted to get across. Denis obviously did away with a lot of the subtlety of the books that resulted in folks missing the anti-hero messaging, but I do think it was valuable to also have a major character who is willing to stand up at the end and say, "Hey, this is REALLY messed up!" just to drive that final point home.
Dude, I went to go watch every other video you’ve ever made because I loved this one so much and this is your only one????? The fuck- subscribing to watch the birth of your empire 🎉
As someone who's not read any of the books, I appreciate the information and context. Also, I cannot believe this is your first video, keep this up. I expected to see 200k subs when I scrolled down, I think I yet will.
I don't think Villenueve made her an antagonist so much as removed your ability to follow her internal understanding, though her monologuing to Alia does help you understand what she's thinking. Instead, he's showing what she does, which is accurate in the book, in an unapologetically villainous way. He's underlining the danger of her actions. And one of the things that really stood out to me is that it highlights a parallel between Stilgar and Jessica I had never really considered. She's obsessed with the idea that Paul is the Messiah. They have different conceptions of what their messiah is, but both push Paul to be what they envision him to be, even though what he really wants more than anything is the bang Chani and live in the desert. It occurred to me while watching it that Jessica feels guilty because she violated the command to have a daughter, this led to the death of her Duke, and so she needs Paul to be the Kwisatz Haderach to justify her disobedience, otherwise, she got her Duke killed for nothing. Hence why she hisses at the Reverend Mother in the end that she "chose the wrong side." I don't feel like Villeneuve changed that much, but he chose where he put his emphasis, and I think he did it in such a way so that even with his necessarily abbreviated retelling, you catch a lot of the deeper nuances of the themes the book is trying to highlight. I suspect the Dune series (trilogy? One can hope!) will be up there with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings as a truly great adaption of a truly great book.
A cannot express how sad I was to watch this video and excitedly click through to your channel to discover that this is your only video 😅 love this vid and I’m excited for more (dune?) content!
I never saw Jessica as an antagonist. I was unsettled but quickly accepting her change in character as something that came about do to unavoidable circumstances. As I see it she's as much a victim as paul is to her, as Alia is to the water of life and as the Fermen are to Bene Gesserit propaganda. Edit: I never read the books this is my take on the movies.
I loved how menacing and creepy Lady Jessica became in Dune Part Two. Also, I don't have any problem with Alia remaining in Jessica's womb - original books timeline is years, and we have just months here in the movie so this choice was very well justified. Tomorrow I'm going second time to see Dune2 in IMAX, my younger son (12yo) also insisted on going with me again 😄 Unfortunately, in few days they take it off IMAX 😢
“Jessica is not portrayed as an antagonist in the book”… A couple of minutes later he reads the book “My molher is my enemy”. Anyway, at the end of the the film, since Paul drinks the water of life, there were no more differences between them. He says they will survive as Harkonnen, because both are Harkonnen.
8:09 The real villain of dune 2 is that nasty nasty worm juice erybody’s drinkin. Jessica pre water of life compared to post water of life Jessica is startling. Before she is all nervous for her son and about the ritual to become reverend mother. The first scene afterwards Paul asks if she’s ok, and while at first she seems normal with her reassuring him everything’s fine it quickly becomes an insane evangelical ramble about Paul’s destiny. The water of life is the physical manifestation of the prophecy.
We can’t know whether they are correct, but I think the implication here is that given all the genetic memories from the water of life, it is _undeniable_ to each of them that the narrow way is the only option. That’s why the switch flips so quickly.
good video! I've been really torn about my feelings about the new movie, this has more than any video I've watched so far has helped me actually appreciate it, so thanks!
To me, by the end of the book, Jessica has come to the realization that her actions and Paul's, however they were meant, were just small, flashes of dynamism in the midst of a Great Vision set into motion so long ago that it has grown beyond the capacity of any individual or institution to unmake it.
I wonder if Deni will give a more direct node to the Golden Path in the Messiah, like maybe show a vision of Paul where he sees himself as the wormy boy. That'd be fun.
the vilification of jessica was the only major change that I genuinely loved, I understood the reasoning for the other changes, mainly the omission of children characters for practical filming reasons makes sense, it would be tough to get child actors in the desert. Some of the other changes, like scrapping the conflict between Gurney and Jessica, and removing Thufir did sadden me, I thought those were important character moments, and I was excited to see how they would be shown.... only for it to be scrapped. Specifically the conflict between gurney and jessica was what i was most excited for going into the theater, I thought it had so much cinematic potential.
Tim Blake Nelson was rumored to be cast as Count Fenring. Hopefully, there will be a future Dune Extended Edition that includes Count Fenring and other scenes cut.
My biggest gripe is how Paul's refusal to duel Stilgar for leadership is handled. Once after the attack on Sietch Tabr and next when Paul goes to the south. It just gets a few throwaway lines in two different scenes and doesn't get the attention that moment deserved, imo.
Really great first video! I figured you had been doing this much longer based on the quality of your writing. Subscribed! I read once that a protagonists are the characters the story revolve around, who experience change or development, and have a complete arch. In that sense, I think several characters can be considered protagonists in Dune part 1 and 2, including Lady Jessica as she is depicted in the film. Assuming an antagonist is a character that opposes a protagonist in a story, which I don't think Lady Jessica did. Rather, she helped progress the story arch of Paul, who is one of the protagonists.
You can call Paul the protagonist. It doesn’t make a character “the good guy.” It’s just the primary character we follow with the most screen time. You can write stories where the good guys are hardly around at all, or stories where the protagonist and antagonist are both morally ambiguous.
I definitely got the feeling that it was Alia's influence partially taking over Jessica and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in Messiah.
Wow, ok you totally convinced me! At first I’m both movies, Jessica was a low for me, in the first she show too much emotion for me at first, but then I noticed that she was always alone in this parts and she was just externalizing emotions that in the book are internalized. Since this is a movie they have to show them. In the second one I was not sold on her until your video, I thought that they took too much of the loving mother (one of her core personality traits and the biggest reason she betrayed the BG, her capacity for love), but you are totally right. She does the same things in the book but is portrayed in a less negative light. I remember a lot of scenes about the power play with the Freeman, (one of my favorites has she, Alia and Jamis ex that belongs to Paul now). She is a Reverend Mother and the religious figure among the freeman. Yeah in the end she regrets how much politics guide her life and her children (when she say to Paul to marry Chani), but she still continues to help him.
The only change I can't approve is the absence of closure for Thufir Hawat. Everything else made sense and I applaud Villeneuve for making those decisions.
I see Jessica as just another person seeking revenge. I don't see her with sympathy, but I get it: she either rules or becomes water in the well. I'd call that desert rules.
In defense of Lady Jessica she is told become the reverend mother or die, and even at the end of the film she is confronting Chani for Paul’s sake and is clearly doing out of some measure of either guilt or remorse for the harsh path she set her son on that has pushed Chani away.
I’m saying it wherever I can. Best movie I’ve ever seen but I’ve never read the books. Music, sound design, cinematography, dialogue, character development and combat sequences. All fucking killer
You described how I felt about lady Jessica while describing the book and then proceeded to say I wouldn’t get that opinion from watching the movie yet I’ve never read the books.
Protagonist/=/Good Antagonist/=/Evil The protagonist is whoever’s veiw point we primarily follow through the story. They could be the most heinous evil git, but still be the protagonist. The opposite is true as well. A good example is Wile Coyote and Roadrunner. Coyote is definitely not the ‘hero’, but he is the protagonist of the story even though he’s ‘bad’.
There's a distinct difference between a villain and an antagonist. Antagonists are opposed to the protagonist's goals, even if those goals are ultimately villainous. A villain is a character who is villainous or does evil deeds. Jessica is a protagonist that is also a villain, or at least has villainous qualities. Paul is also a Protagonist, but I'd argue his good intentions don't quite make him a hero. Baron Harkonnen is both Antagonist and Villain, same with Feyd-Rautha and Shaddam IV.
Wait, Paul becomes a bad guy?! But I already named my son Quiznos Hatrack..
Bruh it's clearly queen sat on a rack
it's Quizzical Halifax🤦♂🤦♂
@@moldman5694*Quizlet Halfback
Lulz 😂😅
You mean Whiplash Dogsnack?
Jessica going from survival mode and a victim of circumstance in film one to just full on villain era in film two was just *chefs kiss*
Still survival mode in this film. "Become the Reverend Mother or get sent out into the desert to die".
@@julesjma true, but she gains a lot more control than she had in part 1
she didnt seem villainous to me tho? just manipulative. and since her desires clash so hard with pauls their relationship is somewhat antagonistic towards each other but she definitely didnt seem like a villain to me
@@killerqueeenie she manipulates an entire indigenous population into fighting and dying for her and Paul, if it was framed from almost any other angle it would make her more explicitly villainous imo
@therobotFrom94 i dont disagree really. i just feel like the film is still able to maintain a sense of nuance with jessica and paul.
At 5:06 you said you're not gonna call Paul the protagonist, but that's literally what he is. He is the protagonist of the story. It doesn't matter if what he does is good or bad, but he is the focal point of our story, so he is our protagonist.
I was going to mention this as well. "Protagonist" isn't the same as "hero" or "good guy" of the story. It just means "main character". Many stories have protagonists who are outright evil.
@@jayb8934 Hannibal
"Protagonist" and "Antagonist" are such widely misused terms on the internet, it drives me insane
@@-_melow_-8111 and "villain"
@@beersimpson1 yep Hannibal Buress is the protagonist of The Eric Andre Show and is pure evil incarnate, I agree.
Jessica never once is apologetic for her actions. Smartly Villenue picks up on this and does a great job in translating her as Herbert intended.
Totally disagree. If Herbert had intended Jessica to be a villain, then he would have presented her as such. Herbert wasn't just "some hack" that didn't get the (his) character right - he was a literary genius who is a sci-fi flag bearer.
L@@Eric-1701
Hmm kind of difficult to agree when HERBERT HIMSELF as confirmed that he meant for Jessica and Paul to both be deeply flawed, and was disappointed that many readers saw them as heroes - lit 5 mins of research can save you from being heinously wrong @@Eric-1701
@@Eric-1701 No ones saying Herbert failed? Jessica is a villian. The movie is less subtle with it buuuut that's actually for the best given time constraints and the fact it's harder to do internal perspective in film. The movie focuses more on how her actions look outside from her own perspective and that's the correct way to do it in a movie. It does make for less nuance but I don't think it's to the genuine detriment of the film
@@Eric-1701nobody said Herbert was "some hack"......
The changes were made to show that they understood what Frank Herbert was saying about "messiahs".
Let the viewer get there . Does not need to be spelled out .
The audience is supposed to support Paul so we can be duped as they are
@@necromorph1109 you're overestimating moviegoers...
Hahaa no not w todays audiences @@necromorph1109
you mean there's no reason to do more than 2 movies now? That's the whole point of book 2, not book 1
@@necromorph1109Exactly. Also, Paul's visions and his fear of the coming Jihad is enough to show the audience that what he's about to do is awful.
Jessica went full Bene Gesserit, she has no issue doing what she did due to her training, this is what the Sisterhood do. She just did it independently of Mohiam. The changes involving Jessica, Fenring and Mohiam anticipate what's learned about the Sisterhood in future books. I thought Chani was the bigger change. Paul avoiding his destiny was a simplification of his struggles in the book that was only hinted at with his mention of a narrow path.
And of course there is in that "narrow path" a clearly hidden message to readers of the book series that this path is ultimately a "golden" one that, due to Paul's feet of clay, he condemns his own son to taking - the most "Greek tragedy" part of the Atreides saga as told in Dune.
BTW, this is presumably why Herbert chose to take Paul's family name from Greek mythology - where it refers to a series of related myths (themselves "adapted" for the stage by Classical Greek playwrights) about a multi-generational curse of the gods inflicted upon the House of Atreus, which in Greek is rendered as the "Atreides". The lore in Dune goes VERY deep...
@@PeloquinDavid Perhaps. Remember though that Paul's narrow path is not the Golden Path, especially in Dune. We learn during the desert meeting between Paul and Leto II in Children that Paul's plan for humanity was one leading to stagnation. Leto II's Golden Path requires a much longer stewardship and the sacrifice of transformation and immortality. Paul was clearly aware of the Golden Path in that meting and knows exactly what Leto II has chosen. Of course that's after a lot of retcon in the books between Dune and Messiah then Messiah & Children, which Villeneuve is aware of. He's certainly read them after his treatment of the Bene Gesserit in Dune 2. So maybe it's a nod to it.
@@dorbie I don't recall there being any mention of a "narrow path (or a parh of any kind) in the first book, but it's been a year or so since I last re-read it... So I just assumed it was a coded message from Villeneuve to readers of the extended series.
Now that you mention it, I have always just assumed that when Paul took the Water of Life he became aware of the "Golden Path" (along with many others). By the time he exiled himself to the desert years later, he presumably saw it as having become one of the "better" of a bad lot of remaining paths forward.
I interpreted his exile as an act of cowardice (befitting a Greek tragedy) that left the enormous burden of what "needed to be done" to be borne by Leto II.
@@PeloquinDavid The channel Quinn's Ideas has a lot of excellent content on this. Essentially, what Paul saw first was what was in the immediate few years, and by the time everything was in motion, there were no paths available that would stop the Fremen Jihad. It wasn't until during or after the Jihad that he saw the Golden Path, and that was because the Prescient Eye could only go so far at first. He need to train it, get use to it, grow more powerful (it's even thought that Leto II and the later gholas of Duncan Idaho had much greater vision in the Prescient Eye). Once he could see far enough ahead, he saw the end of days. The Golden Path was the only way to strengthen mankind enough to prepare them to survive what was to come, as all other paths led to total human extinction. Problem was the Golden Path entailed exactly everything that Leto II did, Paul knew that, and refused to do it because it would mean giving up his humanity.
Basically, in the end, the Ixians would improve upon the hunter-seekers, giving them advanced AI, self-replicating capabilities, and the powers of Prescience. The hunter seekers would then go rogue and prove to be completely unstoppable, and would exterminate all of mankind. So Leto ruled the Imperium for thousands of years with an iron fist, making humanity long to explore and be free, all the while breeding the Atreides line until he created a new gene that his those with it from the Prescient Eye entirely. With this gene in place, it could then be spread amongst the human race ensuring that when the hunter-seekers came, there would be a surviving remnant of humanity. He also mentions in the 4th book that he had been actively working to prevent that future from coming sooner, and it would've already occurred long ago had he not been intervening.
This was all Frank Herbert's stuff. Brian Herbert's expanded Dune goes in a different direction.
@@PeloquinDavid The Golden Path is a retcon in Children. I agree that up until Children my recollection is that it's all about navigating nexuses of unpredictable inflection points between an otherwise lucid landscape of choice. Paul was trapped by his visions and every option was bad, ultimately he sacrificed his happiness for humanity's survival. His existence as the Messiah became a problem and he didn't want to stick around to be tempted into servitude by a Chani Ghola. It's never really explained why he took the stoneburner to the face but it probably has a lot to do with setting himself on a path where he ultimately removed himself from the equation the traditional Fremen way.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
Lady Jessica wanted a quiet and peaceful life with Duke Leto, Paul, and Alia. But the Bene Geserit wanted the Duke dead and Paul to be a girl to enact their plans. So Lady Jessica decided to make the Kwisatz Haderach (however that’s spelled) with her hand on the wheel instead of the emperor. It’s a cautionary tale about long laid plans, building prophecies, and conspiracies.
I'm thankful Dune Part 2 drove home the fact that Lady Jessica set everything in motion
She woke up, drank some worm piss, and chose violence.
Just ask Planetologist Keynes about the wisdom of long ranged plans and conspiracy 😅
Best mother villain since Cersei Lannister before got went to shit
Her motivation was not scorn and the BG did not want Leto dead. Her motivation was love for Leto and wanting to fulfill his desire for a son.
I think her film version's proactive nature was to make crystal clear just how artificial the prophecy was, because audiences WOULD miss it if there wasn't someone on screen being an overtly villainous manipulator. They didn't want there to be a question that maybe there actually was a prophecy, that this was another straightforward Chosen One Trope. In prose you can be overt with narration of the mechanics of your plot, in cinema the same overt methods are just characters doing things plainly.
With media literacy how it is nowadays, that was completely necessary.
It isn't media literacy "nowadays", it is media literacy ever. If you need more evidence, go look at the movie Starship Troopers. There has almost never been a more overt satirization that was completely missed by virtually everyone who consumed the work, and that was 25 years ago.
@@just_gut Every film critic missed this "satire" becouse it was badly done. thats all. If you want to know better anti-nazi satire read "War with the Newts" by Karel Čapek (or his other works which are perfect example of anti-militaristic/anti-emperialistic satie).
i've seen so many people not understand this even with how obvious it is..... media literacy found dead
@@sychuan3729 No, every film critic missed it because their job doesn't train them to look for serious themes underlying very unserious movies. The number of non-standard elements that critics missed back in the day because they went in with a pre-conceived notion about the film could dam the oceans.
@@sychuan3729 badly done????? Nah bro bugging to the highest degree
As a person who didn’t read the books, I got that nuanced presentation. Remember, in the movie she didn’t want to do it but the fremen were gonna throw them out if she didn’t replace their queen mother. So it was clear she was trying to survive.
Exactly.
yeah i definitely didnt view her as an antagonist in the films narrative. it definitely felt more nuanced than that for me too, as someone who hasnt read the books
Yes. To me it never she never felt like the villain, she's just a mother trying to protect her family. In Dune I she realized that she was disposable to the Bene Gesserit and they wouldn't protect her or her family, so naturally the most optimal way to save them was to manipulate the prophecy in her favor. She is selfish but not evil
@@thearcanamodernau8130and for me, how much can you really blame a mother for being selfish about the lives and well being of her family. The movie did a great job of conveying the themes of the story without a 1:1 exact adaptation
Well, I feel like she was motived by her survival and protection of Paul, like you all say. ... At least before she drank the water of life. After she drank the water of life, she changed. Which makes sense, she has memories of various people, including Bene Gesserit, in her family tree, memories that influence her. She's a lot more manipulative and ruthless, because of her transformation and awakening of all those memories.
It's not just Jessica, is Jessica woven together with all the reverend mothers before her. The Water changed her, it's why the other reverend mother now respects her, she sees her as someone powerful enough to steer history itself.
i thought she can only see the memories of her own matriline
@@daisystrait it is not clarified in the movie, but the previous fremen rm transfers all her knowledge and cumulative personas of the past rms to Jessica, so yeah, in a way she is influenced by old rms, who actually believed in the prophecy and/or wanted to fight back the millennia-long oppression
The other revered mother does not respect her, she hates her and thinks she should be destroyed
@@JackdotC that's kinda a semantical thing, it's possible to respect an adversary
@@JackdotCit’s because jessica gave birth to a boy and on top of that had an abomination baby
There's a new quote from the director talking about how much it hurt him to cut Fenring
Alright cool, director's cut when lol
@@evan12697 ''No I don't think I will''
@@evan12697He's also ADAMANT that he'll never do a Director's Cut of any of his movies.
@@colbyboucher6391 which is such bullshit...
@@evan12697no, if you're a good enough director the full release movie IS the directors cut lmao. Deleted scenes are what DvD and box releases are for, not for whole recuts that take up extra budget. Directors cuts only work when there's been so much studio interference that it completely goes against what the director sought out to do.
I hadn't read the novel (I've started it since I saw Part Two) when I saw the new film, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Jessica (who was my favourite character in the first film). And there was one passage that particularly stood out for me thanks to Rebecca Ferguson's acting:
After Paul manages to ride the shai-hulud, one of the fremen comes to tell Jessica and her "followers". All the women start talking about it excitedly, as if it's confirmation that Paul is the One. And where Rebecca Ferguson is brilliant is that we see Jessica's whole thought process in a few moments: observation, realisation (she's managed to convince them), satisfaction, ambition, confirmation of what she now has to do and finally she communicates with Alia. This is where I really saw the transformation of the character and where she really becomes the antagonist in my opinion. I loved the film and Jessica's character development, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with her in the next film.
but she's not an antagonist, like at all....
@@OrenPanitch Yeah, this is correct. One of the great things about the novel is that you get a sense of much larger forces at play, and these people are caught in the maelstrom. Paul is at the center of it, and trying to harness it in a way, but he's also swept up in the currents as he tries to ride them. Jessica plays her part as she must, but it's not like she's trying to wreck them all.
@Oren She is an antagonist in this movie as Paul didn’t want to be the messiah that starts a holy war, but Jessica does and her actions are meant to lead them towards that. Yes she’s more morally grey than outright evil but antagonist just means opposing the protagonist (which just means main character).
Yeah she's not evil in either book or movie, just mostly amoral. The reason she can be seen as an antagonist in the book (despite wanting to help and protect Paul) is that she started him and is continuing to push him down the path that he knows will lead to war. The main struggle for Paul isn't against the Harkonens or the emperor, but rather against the path he sees before him (i.e. the prophecy).
So the movie making Jessica an overt antagonist is a way to help make clear what the true struggle for Paul is about. I think it's a great way to adapt from book to film, as the wonderful complexity and subtlety on that point in the book would be far too easy to miss or misinterpret in a movie.
@@MrSupergingerman you need to read more of the series. He's not fighting the prophecy. He's fighting the future that is inevitable. It's why he eventually pussies out and leaves it to his son to inherit
I really missed Alia BUT this way explains pre-born abomination so much better. Jessica is now doing dual duty as Jessica and Alia.
How can it be better? They turned the climax of the book into a child play. It doesnt explain the abomination because they said it for Paul. It was a stupid change.
@@altikirkbesIt was very clearly for Alia, when Jessica drank the Water of Life.
@hypatia137 I totally agree.
Tbh aside from the ending and Alia, I didn’t really notice the changes because everything they changed was more to adapt a written story to a film and they did it in a way that was genuinely faithful to the source. Also if you consider Alia there isn’t really a way to get an actor for her because of how young she is and how capable she is.
Also I feel like with Messiah they’re going to end it with Paul walking into the desert after he goes blind.
That would be the perfect conclusion for Denis Villeneuve's trilogy. Though I still dream the other books would be adapted too.
Huge agree. Having read the books many times I think the story telling across the two movies is so well done it was mostly only on reflection after watching that I really realised how many things got changed. (Yes there are very glaring changes but it does a good job of wrapping you up in the moment).
Save for a few things that make me wonder how they’ll portray a few things in Messiah I think all the changes are understandable for an adaptation.
I also noticed how different Chani is in the movies, but in a good way! In the books she's a flat, almost spineless character. In the movies she's actually fleshed out with a bit of an arc and has a lot more agency.
Considering how important she is to the story I think that is a huge improvement.
@@MrSupergingermanlol that's not true at all. In the books she was an unique character. Now she is Zendaya. The typical strong female character with masculine characteristics. Lazy and unoriginal writing. Denis just couldn't afford to have a female character that is devoted to Paul and is so supportive of him that she stays with him even while he marries a different woman. It's completely changing the story and over developing one character while trashing the rest. If they would at least do it right and not bash you over and over again with how strong and smart and not gullible she is like we didn't get it the first three times.
Better this than the abomination called Chuckesmee 🫣
Count Fenring is the Tom Bombadil of the Dune adaptations
Fenring at least does something. Well, chooses not to do something.
@@jaquandrejoneshe does hit him with the old Captain America, “No I don’t think I will”
Yes and Tim Blake Nelson actually filme his role and it got cut, which SUCKS. Sadly, this movie, although being only one book (like the Hobbit) well could have been three films (NOT like the Hobbit).
I haven't read dune and don't know who is count fenring. But I read Lotr and I'm so glad tom bombadil isn't in adaptation, such an annoying character
@@lenakataeva7525 count fenring is the emperor's only true advisir for a long time. Childhood friends, due to their mothers and eventually fenring is one of the best Assassin's in the empire. Every good decision the emperor ever made, fenring told him to do it type beat. Real interesting character. Decides not to kill Paul at the emperor's orders bc he was tired of not being listened to. Fun assassin.
A very interesting take. I read the film plot as her heeding the call while Paul resists. If anything, we're seeing her as an antagonist through Paul's eyes, but not as a villain.
She manipulates an entire civilization to begin a bloody conquest throughout the galaxy. That's not villainous?
@@sertaki Sure, from a certain point of view.
@@sertakiWhere it gets a little weird is that for all of Frank Herbert's "messiahs are bad and Paul made a mistake" talk, ultimately a huge part of his Dune novels is that God, the collective unconscious of humanity, really really wanted a genocide. Leto showing up and going "OK, no more messiahs" was one form of an inevitable conclusion. Part of Paul's tragedy is that he THINKS he sees a way to cheat around the inevitable, but keeps turning back onto the path. He goes for his revenge, which was following the path he saw. He has children and makes damn well sure to keep them alive, which was RESISTING the path he saw (in a sense) and only learns when he succeeds what he's condemned the world to. Frank's desire to push some crazy Jungian "genetic memory" stuff waters down the surface-level point he tried to make.
I agree - an antagonist is there to prevent the protagonist from getting what they want… Jessica manipulates Paul but she’s not thwarting his desires
The biggest issue I have with the differences is almost completely wiping away the space guild from this portion of this adaptation. And it’s a glaring weakness because the only reason Arrakis has relevance in that literary universe is the fact the spice makes space travel possible. The ending of this movie doesn’t make sense without giving the navigators a prominent role. The threat of destroying the spice is key to the downfall of Emperor, and exercising power over the houses.
Right? Those fremen are not going to be leading anyone to paradise until they have the guild to take them interstellar. The omission of the guild and that fact that the entire movie takes place over 8 months or so are by far my biggest criticisms of the film.
CHOAM and the Guild are so criminally underrepresented in this adaptation. My favorite scene in the first novel is when it's revealed at the end that those around the emperor have the blue-in-blue eyes and are taking Paul's side showing just how powerful the spice is.
Agreed. They could have included them without adding too much more time. A couple of short interactions in the first film and then weaving in a few mentions in both films would have been enough to covertly establish how powerful and far reaching they are. Then having them show up in the throne room would reveal the mystery and raise the stakes that much higher.
Agreed. I already understood the role of spice in the setting, but I honestly can't say if that's because of the first movie or absorbing the concept from nerd culture osmosis. My friend didn't already know and definitely didn't glean it from p2.
The little blurb at the start of Pt. 1 about space travel being impossible without melange is doing a TON of work. Too much. It's a side-effect of Davis Villeneuve being a dude who hates dialogue being asked to direct a story that's originally, like, 80-90% dialogue plus a load of appendixes.
To make Dune just like the novels, there would need to be 10, 3 hour movies.
SyFy Dune miniseries did the best job in portraying the world of Dune and was VERY faithful to the book despite being shorter than Dune 1 and 2 by a full 1 hour!!!
Yes, SyFy production was TERRIBLE, with bad actors and costumes with horrendous special effects, but as an overall story.....far better than this. And ONE HOUR shorter!
@pathfinder2reality if only the mini-series had David Lynch's budget and vision. The combination of it's screenplay would've been perfect.
@@pathfinder2reality lmao no it wasnt
still haven't found that path to reality yet then? as you're clearly DELUDED@@pathfinder2reality
@@pathfinder2reality I love the sci fi version ,,,,,,,,,and the actors, really.
My read was that, since she is still carrying Alia in this version (and carrying on conspiratorial conversations with her), she is under the influence of Alia in a similar way to how Alia is increasingly under the influence of other voices in the future books.
I say "under the influence", because Alia in no way controls her, but Alia encourages her worst - most basic, most primal, most savage - urges. I noted that Ferguson's portrayal of Jessica to be less fearful or cautious after she drinks the Water and Alia awakens.
As for the full arc, my bet is that Villeneuve is going to cap off the series with Paul foiling the attempt on the twins' life and retiring to the desert to be The Wanderer.
Breaking news - Dune Part III will be exclusively focusing on the daily life of Count Fenring. You heard it here first!
I loved what they did with Chani in the movie, too. She still doesn't exactly move the plot anywhere but the lens she offers us in the movie really drives home the point of Dune much more overtly than what we got in the novel.
Her changed I couldnt stand. Part of their relationship is the bonding over both of them loosing their fathers and trauma they suffered from this, which was destroyed by NOT making Chani the Daughter of Liet as she is in the book. Dennis could have done everything he did in the movie without messing with Chani and Pauls relationship. In the book as well, Chani understood the political marriage was necessary to solidify Pauls claim to the throne and quel the Houses. Again this was trashed, she just leaves throwing a tantrum. It also paints the next book into a corner if she is gone with Chani giving birth to Leto II and Ghanima.
@@AEGISDEFENSE I can definitely respect that. For me, I always considered the core of their relationship to be Paul's immersion into Fremen culture so I didn't really mind. By extension, her reaction to the political marriage fit this take on the character as she is generally less blind to the influence Paul has on her people. I share your concern over Leto II and Ghanima, though. CoD is my favorite in the series and it's looking pretty tough to adapt following this movie continuity. However, it's my understanding that Denis only wishes to adapt up to Messiah so if he intends to conclude the story there I won't complain. Hopefully we'll get a proper Children and God Emperor adaptation one day but to me this is just another awesome version of Dune that I can engage with independent of the books rather than a straightforward 1:1 adaptation.
@@AEGISDEFENSE Also they had a child before that died during atack on Tabr
She was so cranky in the second half and kind of bothered me with her American accent seemed out of place
@@AEGISDEFENSE Agreed . Chani almost ruined the movie for me. Paul lost his father, is mad at his mother and the bene , is without his mentors Duncan and Gurney. All he has is Chani and her understanding. Her devotion to him as he deals with the crap dealt to him is a wonderful love story. This movie makes her out to be the opposite. someone who makes jokes while his mother is taking the water of life... (since she doesnt believe in anything she is sure his mother will die , but just laughs at Stilgar's faith) she hates his decisions in the movie and leaves him when he needs her the most. She is such a strong female character in the novels.
The scene I miss from the book is where Paul's baby sister Alia gives Grandpa Vladimir Harkonnen the Gom Jabbar.
It was a smart move to keep Alia entirely out of this movie, aside from fetus form
It would've been hell to cast a child actress that could deliver a convincing murder
I was already questioning if I had missed something when the Baron perished lol
Had to check that it's the gom jabbar that killed him originally
No matter how good the rest of the movie was, this is still such a disappointment to me. When the movie was first announced this was the scene I was most curious and excited to see adapted and instead they just... didn't.
It was the climax of the book and they turned it into a child play. Even the word "abomination" SAID for ALIA in the book, not Paul. A weak screenplay!
@@matheussanthiago9685 they could do if they have enough courage and imagination. Even 1984 version gave its right!
Not hearing count Fenrings "ahhhhs" and "hmmmms" broke my heart.
Indeed! And the Baron didn’t perv on the Countess’s neck.
I did not at all think of Jessica as an antagonist until this video, and realize now how much was said in the very first scene between Paul and Jessica. A son, needing water that should be the duty of a parent to provide, but instead she calls upon him against his tendencies to take up the mantle of coercion against free will to compel her to do it. In experiencing her free will being removed, she also feels the elation of her own success, and they share this special water. The only way they can survive.
...Damn, that really does foreshadow the whole arc between her and Paul, huh? Keeps shoving her son off of cliffs while a rope is tied between him and her ankle. Intentionally.
Thank you for mentioning that My mother is my enemy line. That is clearly the foundation of the change and makes it clearer to a cinema audience. The darkness of the BG is so clear in the film.
I think this is part of an overall trend of changes where the characters are put more at odds with each other (the same with Chani being against the prophecy). I think this is a sensible choice, since it lets them put a lot of the conflict into dialogue, where it was part of characters internal narrative.
I loved that Villeneuve portrayed her as a Bene Gesserit. The Missionaria Protectiva was strong with her, and she used it adroitly
Having read Dune YEARS ago, I'm totally baffled at how they switched up the characters. Still tho, from what I remember, this feels like a fresh and STILL faithful adaptation.
Like, yea, I remember reading Jessica's character as not actually an antagonist but more of a morally grey-but-loving mother. There are so many things that Villeneuve did that play out so good. His changes are subtle and don't take too much from the novel AND STILL makes the film feel faithfully adapted.
Honestly, cant wait to watch it a second time
_Most_ of the changes were subtle. Chani was not.
Try SciFi mini-series Dune(2000)/Children of Dune (2003)
You can almost view the movies as parellel subline of choices Paul could take with same result.
@@MotleyNerdshut up my god
People are trying so hard to make chani into dunes rey and zendaya a hate figure, but its not sticking.
7:50 That early scene where she’s telling Alia her plans as she looks upon a group of frightened Fremen is the most haunting scene in the movie for me.
I've had this discussion a lot this week: Jessica doesn't really force anything, she's quite subtle in her methods (barring 3 specific scenarios). Her role is seemingly more to remove obstacles from Paul's path, more than to actually push or guide him down said path.
Another thing is, it's been a while since I read any of the novels, but I don't think there was any interactions between Irulan and the Reverend Mother in the original Dune, but there definitely was in Dune Messiah. So these interactions in the film seem to be setting up her story nicely for the Dune Messiah film.
Yeah, I think it was a smart move to build up Irulan bit more instead of her just showing up at the end like she did in the book.
They took the idea of her writing all the chapter intros and expanded it into something much cooler.
I have a decades old memory of reading the book(s) and a spattering of lore picked up over the years, and i really didn't see Jessica as an antagonist. She comes off as manipulative (no more than any bene gesserit) but her ends don't seem overtly evil. Really seems mostly important to moving the plot forward and upping the stakes.
Yep shes an aristocrat she is looking after Pauls interests and people, like the fremen, are pawns. She does see atreides men such as gourney as part of her inner circle, but everyone outside...pwans
I mean your perspective on Jessica also reveals how you feel about aristocracy. If Nobles have a right to impose their will on commoners, than Jessica did nothing wrong.
@@rdkap42ridiculous comparison, because "rights" have nothing to do with this. She is bound between two choices: Use what the bene gesserite left or die. Nobles in real life have far more options than this. If anything this reveals you don't think shit through and don't have a strong foundation on which to critique nobles... which is sad really, cause they suck ass.
Lady Jessica was my favorite character in this sequel. Her dynamic with the unborn Alia is SO creepy but also really well done. That scene where she realizes she can convert the most fearful, and then when she takes de facto control of the Bene Gesserit at the end was amazingly well acted and captured. Her face when she communicates that line "You should have believed" just felt so vindicative but also satisfying.
Children of Dune would be great to have what would be one of the most off putting visuals ever. That is what the world needs, some kind of Cronenberg film of worm/human metamorphosis.
People who haven't read the books are already not going to be ready for movie 3 aka Dune Messiah. They're REALLY not going to be ready for Children of Dune.
They're not ready for the adult beefswelling
I loved the call back to the Voice Paul hears saying his name from the first movie. You can hear it again in part II when he meets Alia in his vision!
Frank Herbert wrote Dune: Messiah because he felt like the themes of the first were not picked up on or completely misunderstood. I think that's ample enough proof that even great authors are not experts of their own work sometimes, at least not in the way we think. They're too close to the material and get so precious about every minute detail that they lose sight of the big picture. It's GOOD when an adapter can understand a piece of work so well that they can more clearly express what a writer is trying to convey.
I didn't read the book, but I like the part where the Nick-nack Paddy-wak drinks the blue gatorade and fights Hard Conan with the freemasons.
This is probably a nitpick, but "antagonist" and "villain" are not interchangeable. She is absolutely an antagonist by definition- a good person and even the more correct person can be an antagonist. They are just the character whose goals are in conflict with the protagonist (the pov/focus or main character).
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain." -Kwisatz Haderach
Great video! I hope that you'll continue to talk about Dune.
Alia is sleeping with Duncan in Dune Messiah, so I don't know if it's right to say that she's a "child". She is young, certainly, perhaps as young as 14 (in the books, two years, possibly more, pass between her birth and the end of Dune, then twelve more years before Dune Messiah), but at least an adolescent-and given her Other Memories, it's arguable as well that she ever really was anything other than a composite adult, which is part of the problem. She's definitely a complicated character to think about.
Young Alia brings an impact to the Dune book finale. I wish she were in the movie, too. Talking fetus is not quite the same.
I agree 100%. They destroyed the great climax and lost the great impact! And I don't know how they will connect the dots in the 3rd movie.
Remember in Dune 2 the Jessica character after the water of life is kind of 2 characters in one with Alia having an influence as well.
Kinda not really though, Alia's personality is at first primarily Jessica's due to her absorbing Jessica's memories and emotions. Alia's inner-mind version of Jessica protects her at first from the other lives, but then detaches from her mother after birth, which is when her personality becomes more and more shaped by the other lives inside her mind. While she's still with Jessica, Alia and Jessica are almost 1 character in a way just voicing some of Jessica's alternative thoughts.
Always found it wild that my parents saw Dune and was like… “yeah let’s name our child after her…Alia”
I haven't heard anyone really talking about it, but in my opinion the best thing they did in the film was the events leading up to the final battle. In the book Paul takes the water of life kind of out of nowhere, then three weeks later he wakes up and has a vision of the emperor and the houses having showed up in orbit, and he goes to fight them. Then right as they're preparing to attack, he gets word that Sietch Tabr was attacked (offscreen) and feels that his child has been killed in the attack. Then he attacks. It feels very abrupt.
It makes way more sense the way they did it in the film and really highlights Paul's reluctance to be a messiah and the change he goes through after taking the Water of Life. It feels much more like a giant action set piece. It also gives a more powerful impetus for deciding to accept his fate, it really feels like his hand was forced against his will by things he couldn't control (but were set in motion by the Bene Gesserit). I also like that he is shown rallying all the Fremen from the South, which doesn't happen in the book (some Fremen come to a council but we don't really get to see it). In the book as far as I could tell it was just his Fedaykin that attacked the emperor's tent.
I'm confused. Paul is obviously the protagonist. Protagonist just means the focus of the story. So that's Paul..An antagonist works against the protagonist, and I don't think Jessica is an antagonist in that sense. She's a villain, but so (ultimately) is Paul. Walter White in Breaking Bad is a protagonist, but he's obviously not a good guy.
Thanks for the comment. My read is: Paul wants to prevent the manifestation of the prophecy, this point demonstrated several times throughout the film. Jessica actively works to ensure he becomes the Kwisatz Haderarch despite Paul taking numerous preventative measures and plays into the Fremen belief, thus working in direct opposition to him.
Paul is both protagonist and antagonist he goes against himself until he doesn’t and just gives in to the jihad towards the end.
@@kylesilagyistuffbut paul doesnt actually take any prevantative measures. He does everything to become the messiah, he just says "but i dont want to" first. Its WEAK writing and directing.
@archologyzero they talk about it more in the book, he bassically wants to walk as close to becoming the messiah as possible, without causing the jihad. After he drinks the worm juice he bassically realises he either does the jihad or everyone he loves dies, so he chooses the death of billions for his friends and family, who he bassically also stops caring about as people at the end of the book as well
The CGI is next level. Marvel movies feel like the CHI has 64 colors.
Brillant review. Might be my fav of all the reviews, so far. I think it helps that you are a Dune "scholar" & I greatly appreciate your points. I too was a bit perplexed at the changes. My more irrtating was the change of Chani, who was his loving support in the novel, but more of a foil in the film. And, why didn't they have Leto II, or at least the pregnancy, happen at the end. At least that would've helped the audience understand that despite the upcoming marriage to the princess, Chani would remain prominent in Paul's life.
Well, in the book, at some point, the younger Fremen get so entranced by Paul's myth that they want him to challenge and kill Stilgar to replace him as their leader in the old Freme tradition. A Council is then organized, with Paul, Jessica and Stilgar playing a part to avoid this useless confrontation between Paul and Stilgar.
Here is a quote from this passage :
"Again, Paul raised his voice : 'You think it's time I called out Stilgar and changed the leadership of the troops!' Before they could respond, Paul hurled his voice at them in anger: 'Do you think the Lisan al-Gaib that stupid?'
There was stunned silence.
_He's accepting the religious mantle_, Jessica thought. _He must not do it !_"
In this quote, it is clear that Jessica understands the potential catastrophe that Liet Kynes had also feared, such a candid, naive people like the Fremen under the influence of a leader that would be at once a messiah and a warmaster, and she rejects that.
In the book, Jessica is the only character that is unflexibly motivated mainly by love (well, Yueh too ^^) : she disobeyed the Bene Gesserit for the love of her duke, she took disputable actions to save herself and Paul and ensure their survival out of love for her son and soon to be born daughter, she realised too late the effects of her taking the water of life on her daughter, but the scene describes her sending waves of love to Alia to try preserving her daughter's sanity, and she finally accepts and loves Chani, even having the last words of the novel with her "legally concubines, but really true wives" line.
It is a sad perversion to turn this figure of love - yes, grey character of course, it's Dune - into some machiavelian figure of raw ambition.
Well she isn't a machiavelian figure of raw ambition in movies either. I feel like movies did show pretty well that majority of her actions are done for survival of her family. But it also shows that she is failable and she is not as insightful as Paul is.
She still has the front she upholds - especially as she takes the role of Reverend Mother, she fully plays the role needed to maximise Paul's success (and to some extend she is also fueled by the spirits of Fremen women and Aila, she isn't the same woman anymore). But they give us enough scenes, where they showcase her actual care and real goals behind her machinations. That image of cold Reverend Mother, is mostly shown to us from Paul's perspective - it's there to showcase his own struggles and fears. But we do also get enough scenes from Jessica's perspective to show that she is doing it all in good faith and not just ambition.
Even in those more ambitious and over the top scenes she has - where she tries to control Paul, at least for me this read as a mother still trying to nourish her own son and pick the best for him - push him in the direction, she believes will be the best for him (kinda falling back into the Bene Gesserit methods). It's like she still sees him as the inexperienced child he is at the very beginning of the story. It's that after they split - she still goes with the original plan they both kinda had and she doesn't see yet that he changed. At least not until the very end of the part 2.
Like mentioned in the video - Jessica's actions always were pretty antagonistic. But they aren't presented clearly as such, because we are seeing the justifications and thoughts she has that pushed her to do them (namely love and survival instincts). In movie, where we commonly move from her - and instead focus on other characters like Paul or Chani, we can see a more broader view of her character and actions. We can see her from a different angle that are other characters.
And I believe that is more in line with Herbert's original intention for Dune. People missed the nuance around Paul and Jessica and that's why he wrote Messiah. Movie directly already fixes for the "changes" Messiah makes.
@@mjm3091 That's also a valid point of view. Perhaps my more severe appreciation comes from unborn Alia. Perhaps some maternal aspect is lacking in my eyes.
I have read her differently. She is indeed driven by ambition, but this ambition is to protect her son and avenge her husband. To achieve that she is manipulating Fremen, of course, this is what she was trained for her whole life. She does not treat Fremen as equals, but she does not wish ill for them, realising her goals would help them tremendously.
She is convinced this is the only way, and she is right. Paul ultimately chooses the same path, not manipulated by her, but due to circumstances which left him no other choice. Later he confirms it, having seen the future. Chani is angry for her, accuses her, but she simply is not right here, she is lashing out because she fells hopeless (and because Jessica can be quite unpleasant when it she feels she can).
It is a trap in this movie that we like Paul but dislike Jessica. Jessica represents harsh reality which we and Paul do not wish to accept. This is really a sad story, a tragedy.
@@Tablis0 Certainly, but this weakens Jessica's becoming the Fremen Reverend Mother, with countless Fremen memores in her mind. The experience should at least slightly alter her relations with Fremen. Reverend Mother Ramallo's memories are truly Jessica's memories after the spice agony.
Alia, due to that, is born true Fremen.
Though you're right too, Jessica does keep her individuality and her own agency after the agony. I'm not sure why I don't like the movie take on the character. Didn't feel like Jessica for me.
Theres a distinct lack of love in these movies. Chani doesn't love Paul at the end either.
you’re so well spoken! this is exactly how i’ve been trying to verbalize these changes to my friends who love the movies but haven’t read the books, thanks for sharing :)))
I also thought that Jessica was kinda the main character of the Dune original trilogy. Like she really took upon herself to make her son the KH for whatever means necessary. She is the reason her family is what it is ‘cause of her choice of having a boy.
Dude. For this being your first video, that was lit. Great analysis.
Lady Jessica is the lioness there protecting her son. Moreover she is Bene Gesserit. Her choosing to give Duke Leto a son created the situation in which Paul becomes the Kwizats Hadderach absent Bene Gesserit control..
I saw the vocal changes at the end of Jessica's sentences to be her unborn daughter influencing her decisions, as she passionately believes in Paul's destiny as the chosen one. As much as Jessica hijacked the Bene Genesserit, her daughter hijacks her very body and mind.
In Dune Messiah Alia was more of a "Young woman" than a child. Case in point, she starts exploring sexuality, and her attraction with Hayt.
bro how you got only 400 subs woooahhhh?? subscribed just now and cant wait to see more of your content icl
I somewhat agree with most of your points but I would not say that she's an antagonist in both book AND movie.
Like you said, her acts remain mostly the same in both version but what you did not mention (oversight?) is that in both medium, she inherits the memories of the past reverand mothers to the extent where she herselfs, despite her teachings, start believing aspects of the prophecy like faith. That is a core message of the first book in my opinion that translated superbly well in the movie with Alia still inside the woumb : despite knowing perfectly the calculated origin of the prophecy, the only way to exploit it lead inexorably to "blind" faith EVEN FOR HER ! It is as if the collective memory and faith of the previous generation uktimatly lead even the most secular of person on the same path. That's how dangerous religions and fanaticism can become : even those who planned them start believing fanaticly when the world becomes harsher than imagined. It is an absolutly omnipresent element of the human race, which is a key element of the sage like you said !
Hence, I would not really call her an antagonist in the movie but a tragic figure that is trapped in the doing of its own kin (Bene Gesserit) to the point of blurring the line between faith and political calculus. There usually is no real antagonist in tragedies but unfortunate souls that cannot escape a destiny of their own (and ancestors') doing.
Great video nonetheless, have a good one !
This video made me realize that it’s very much a callback to the iconic scene from part 1 between Jessica and Leto-“I’m not asking his mother, I’m asking the Bene Gesserit”. The book very much deals with Jessica’s struggle with her split loyalties and desire to rebel against the will of the Bene Gesserit. But the movie has her really lean into that part of her identity, thus protecting Paul as both his mother and as an agent of the Bene Gesserit.
Can you do a video about the changes of Chani? I haven't read the books yet but I saw some discourse around the changes, and I'm interested what you think about it.
I love the background art and tapestry very dune vibes lol and great video! When I saw the first movie I was instantly obsessed
I saw Dune part two last night and I too though it was awesome. More than anything I love how it effectively takes you away to another world completely and as a person that loathes and is bored with modern blockbuster movies I was completely drawn into this movie from beginning to end. The time flew by and I wanted to see more as it came to an end. There were no fart jokes, whammin empowerment or woke messaging shoved in your face or slipped in to preach to you. I hope this movie sparks a new era in film making in Hollywood but dont hold your breath.
bruh the story is about rich families wanting to colonize arrakis to gain control of their important resource (quite literally a drug AND their version of space fuel). even the book wasnt that subtle but the movie is pretty much in your face about it
The best part about this post - Dune is actually woke AF 🤣 Two easy examples from this movie alone: women are the ones truly pulling the strings for the fate of the universe, and southern religious fundamentalists are portrayed as easy to manipulate...one of the main motifs of this whole franchise is "don't trust messiahs"
Yes it was a great movie and I want to see it again @@demifolk8940
You didn't really understand the movie and the messaging did you? LOL 😅
You tell me the message you got from the movie and what you understood@@gingin4920
Not at all what I expected this video to be like but I really loved your presentation and execution, excited to see more!
What do you think of the changes with Chani? I really enjoyed the changes making Chani more of a non believer adding contrast to Jessica, and Alia.
Nice change but very unbelievable to the context!
Count Fenring is like the Tom Bombadil of Dune. I get why they cut him out and it was objectively the right call, but I'm still mad I didn't get to see him "mmmmmm"-ing and "aahhhhhh"-ing all over the place 😄
The biggest change is Chani as it seems to lead to a completely different story in the third part. Chani was done so dirty in this adaptation that it would have been better to just leave her out completely.
How was she done dirty? This part of the story is told from her point of view and she actually has character development and her own agency. The character in the movie is about a million times more interesting than the one in the books who exists only as a device to impact Paul's emotions.
@@kmaguire7161 by reducing her unique character into your stereotypical lazily written strong female character with masculine characteristics that is no different from all the other lazily written strong female characters in the past 15 years. She did have her own agency and development in books, she just wasn't the main character. She was a great supporting character that was unique. Now she is just Zendaya. In the books she is very mature and emotionally stable, now she is just a girl from Brooklyn who can't control herself as no woman should be allowed to submit to a man who is a literal prophet to her people. Because that wouldn't be a good seller for the female audience. So we are bashed over and over again with how powerful she is, how she is not gullible, how hot-headed she is, and so on. Meanwhile, the emperor is greatly undeveloped. He's basically some random dude who does some random things, his daughter could have been explored much more even if you want to save her character mostly for the third part. Paul in the first hour and a half is changed to more of a typical teenage hero that we've seen 3 thousand times already so Zendaya can have more spotlight. Baron, Feyd, Rabban are all underdeveloped with the excuse that they were in the first part. Alia is basically scrapped, Hawat is gone, and Fenring is gone. Benne Geserit is like one of the most interesting groups in all fiction and while their scenes were great they could have been developed so much more. And they left out some major power groups like idk the spacing guild so the ending didn't even make that much sense compared to books. And all that just so we could have more and more scenes with Zendaya being the main character that weren't even done well as they were not continuously developing her character but bashing us with the same tropes over and over again.
This video was so good that I was absolutely astounded that it's your only one listed on RUclips. Regardless you get a sub.
I think the biggest change Id seen is where chani .and how they try to say she's upset with Paul .when it's her vision all along to change arrakkis along and father was known as keep of the change and not accepted usal as Mahdi even though she had visions of Paul as the Mahdi ??? I think they're just trying to kill the actress off
I think a major factor to the change (beyond creating drama for the back half of part 2 and for part 3) is she's meant to be a bit of a stand in for Frank Herbert and the point he wanted to get across. Denis obviously did away with a lot of the subtlety of the books that resulted in folks missing the anti-hero messaging, but I do think it was valuable to also have a major character who is willing to stand up at the end and say, "Hey, this is REALLY messed up!" just to drive that final point home.
Dude, I went to go watch every other video you’ve ever made because I loved this one so much and this is your only one????? The fuck- subscribing to watch the birth of your empire 🎉
The content and production quality of this review are both unmatched
As someone who's not read any of the books, I appreciate the information and context. Also, I cannot believe this is your first video, keep this up. I expected to see 200k subs when I scrolled down, I think I yet will.
I don't think Villenueve made her an antagonist so much as removed your ability to follow her internal understanding, though her monologuing to Alia does help you understand what she's thinking. Instead, he's showing what she does, which is accurate in the book, in an unapologetically villainous way. He's underlining the danger of her actions.
And one of the things that really stood out to me is that it highlights a parallel between Stilgar and Jessica I had never really considered. She's obsessed with the idea that Paul is the Messiah. They have different conceptions of what their messiah is, but both push Paul to be what they envision him to be, even though what he really wants more than anything is the bang Chani and live in the desert. It occurred to me while watching it that Jessica feels guilty because she violated the command to have a daughter, this led to the death of her Duke, and so she needs Paul to be the Kwisatz Haderach to justify her disobedience, otherwise, she got her Duke killed for nothing. Hence why she hisses at the Reverend Mother in the end that she "chose the wrong side."
I don't feel like Villeneuve changed that much, but he chose where he put his emphasis, and I think he did it in such a way so that even with his necessarily abbreviated retelling, you catch a lot of the deeper nuances of the themes the book is trying to highlight. I suspect the Dune series (trilogy? One can hope!) will be up there with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings as a truly great adaption of a truly great book.
A cannot express how sad I was to watch this video and excitedly click through to your channel to discover that this is your only video 😅 love this vid and I’m excited for more (dune?) content!
Insightful commentary. I love that artwork on your walls.
I never saw Jessica as an antagonist. I was unsettled but quickly accepting her change in character as something that came about do to unavoidable circumstances. As I see it she's as much a victim as paul is to her, as Alia is to the water of life and as the Fermen are to Bene Gesserit propaganda.
Edit: I never read the books this is my take on the movies.
I loved how menacing and creepy Lady Jessica became in Dune Part Two. Also, I don't have any problem with Alia remaining in Jessica's womb - original books timeline is years, and we have just months here in the movie so this choice was very well justified.
Tomorrow I'm going second time to see Dune2 in IMAX, my younger son (12yo) also insisted on going with me again 😄 Unfortunately, in few days they take it off IMAX 😢
Talking about quality, man you're built for youtube my guy. The presence of ya is fantastic
Hope you make more videos, this was good.
“Jessica is not portrayed as an antagonist in the book”… A couple of minutes later he reads the book “My molher is my enemy”. Anyway, at the end of the the film, since Paul drinks the water of life, there were no more differences between them. He says they will survive as Harkonnen, because both are Harkonnen.
8:09 The real villain of dune 2 is that nasty nasty worm juice erybody’s drinkin.
Jessica pre water of life compared to post water of life Jessica is startling. Before she is all nervous for her son and about the ritual to become reverend mother.
The first scene afterwards Paul asks if she’s ok, and while at first she seems normal with her reassuring him everything’s fine it quickly becomes an insane evangelical ramble about Paul’s destiny.
The water of life is the physical manifestation of the prophecy.
We can’t know whether they are correct, but I think the implication here is that given all the genetic memories from the water of life, it is _undeniable_ to each of them that the narrow way is the only option. That’s why the switch flips so quickly.
good video! I've been really torn about my feelings about the new movie, this has more than any video I've watched so far has helped me actually appreciate it, so thanks!
To me, by the end of the book, Jessica has come to the realization that her actions and Paul's, however they were meant, were just small, flashes of dynamism in the midst of a Great Vision set into motion so long ago that it has grown beyond the capacity of any individual or institution to unmake it.
I wonder if Deni will give a more direct node to the Golden Path in the Messiah, like maybe show a vision of Paul where he sees himself as the wormy boy. That'd be fun.
A new channel, with good audio and good speaking? Sign me up
Yeah a knife wielding toddler would have looked strange, but Alia is definitely my favorite character from the Dune stuff I've read
the vilification of jessica was the only major change that I genuinely loved, I understood the reasoning for the other changes, mainly the omission of children characters for practical filming reasons makes sense, it would be tough to get child actors in the desert. Some of the other changes, like scrapping the conflict between Gurney and Jessica, and removing Thufir did sadden me, I thought those were important character moments, and I was excited to see how they would be shown.... only for it to be scrapped. Specifically the conflict between gurney and jessica was what i was most excited for going into the theater, I thought it had so much cinematic potential.
Tim Blake Nelson was rumored to be cast as Count Fenring. Hopefully, there will be a future Dune Extended Edition that includes Count Fenring and other scenes cut.
My biggest gripe is how Paul's refusal to duel Stilgar for leadership is handled. Once after the attack on Sietch Tabr and next when Paul goes to the south.
It just gets a few throwaway lines in two different scenes and doesn't get the attention that moment deserved, imo.
Without Count Fenring the emperor doesn't say "do it"
The worst omission
Was one of the first people in the UK to see Part 2. Bloody good film and been a fan of Dune Universe for more than half my life.
Really great first video! I figured you had been doing this much longer based on the quality of your writing. Subscribed!
I read once that a protagonists are the characters the story revolve around, who experience change or development, and have a complete arch. In that sense, I think several characters can be considered protagonists in Dune part 1 and 2, including Lady Jessica as she is depicted in the film. Assuming an antagonist is a character that opposes a protagonist in a story, which I don't think Lady Jessica did. Rather, she helped progress the story arch of Paul, who is one of the protagonists.
Ikr how the fuck is it this guy's first video!
You can call Paul the protagonist. It doesn’t make a character “the good guy.” It’s just the primary character we follow with the most screen time.
You can write stories where the good guys are hardly around at all, or stories where the protagonist and antagonist are both morally ambiguous.
I definitely got the feeling that it was Alia's influence partially taking over Jessica and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in Messiah.
Wow, ok you totally convinced me! At first I’m both movies, Jessica was a low for me, in the first she show too much emotion for me at first, but then I noticed that she was always alone in this parts and she was just externalizing emotions that in the book are internalized. Since this is a movie they have to show them. In the second one I was not sold on her until your video, I thought that they took too much of the loving mother (one of her core personality traits and the biggest reason she betrayed the BG, her capacity for love), but you are totally right. She does the same things in the book but is portrayed in a less negative light. I remember a lot of scenes about the power play with the Freeman, (one of my favorites has she, Alia and Jamis ex that belongs to Paul now). She is a Reverend Mother and the religious figure among the freeman. Yeah in the end she regrets how much politics guide her life and her children (when she say to Paul to marry Chani), but she still continues to help him.
The only change I can't approve is the absence of closure for Thufir Hawat. Everything else made sense and I applaud Villeneuve for making those decisions.
I see Jessica as just another person seeking revenge. I don't see her with sympathy, but I get it: she either rules or becomes water in the well. I'd call that desert rules.
In defense of Lady Jessica she is told become the reverend mother or die, and even at the end of the film she is confronting Chani for Paul’s sake and is clearly doing out of some measure of either guilt or remorse for the harsh path she set her son on that has pushed Chani away.
I’m saying it wherever I can. Best movie I’ve ever seen but I’ve never read the books. Music, sound design, cinematography, dialogue, character development and combat sequences. All fucking killer
You described how I felt about lady Jessica while describing the book and then proceeded to say I wouldn’t get that opinion from watching the movie yet I’ve never read the books.
Protagonist/=/Good
Antagonist/=/Evil
The protagonist is whoever’s veiw point we primarily follow through the story. They could be the most heinous evil git, but still be the protagonist. The opposite is true as well. A good example is Wile Coyote and Roadrunner. Coyote is definitely not the ‘hero’, but he is the protagonist of the story even though he’s ‘bad’.
There's a distinct difference between a villain and an antagonist. Antagonists are opposed to the protagonist's goals, even if those goals are ultimately villainous. A villain is a character who is villainous or does evil deeds. Jessica is a protagonist that is also a villain, or at least has villainous qualities. Paul is also a Protagonist, but I'd argue his good intentions don't quite make him a hero. Baron Harkonnen is both Antagonist and Villain, same with Feyd-Rautha and Shaddam IV.