So without further ado here’s a list of stuff I liked about Dune Part 2:

- all the scenes initially of Paul growing closer to the Fremen. You can clearly see that they become friends, accept him as a Feydakin, that they’re laughing, joking, hanging out. (And contrast that to the end of the movie, where Paul has no more Fremen friends, only followers. In the book, this is echoed, where Paul recognizes that he has lost his friends to the Muad’Dib religion. Take book Stilgar, who truly embodies this… by the end of the book, Paul says: “I have seen a friend [Stilgar] become a worshipper.”

- giving Chani explicit rejection of Paul’s messiah status was an interesting choice. Chani’s main thought over part 2 is that they don’t need religion to save them, that through Fremen power and desert power, the Fremen can save themselves. She recognizes that this fanatical worship can be a vehicle to control and enslave her people, and I sorta wish we saw Paul lean into that more… that they found a way to stay together and ‘fight’ the prophecy together based on Chani’s ideals…

- also, I love how engrained this rejection of religion and prophecy is in her character. Book Chani takes no issue with her Fremen name, Sihaya (desert spring), but movie Chani hates it “because it’s part of some prophecy.” Later, we see that despite her rejection of prophecy and religion, that the prophecy does indeed come to pass— the tears of desert spring save Him aka, Chani saving Paul after he drinks The Water of Life. (Interesting how Jessica has to force Chani to save Paul using the Voice… another example of Jessica explicitly forcing Paul to become the messiah).

- adding more depth to Fremen culture— the South being the more religious fundamentalist tribes vs the North being more secular. Early on, the movie paints this immediate divide between the tribes of Fremen who accept Paul and Jessica versus those who treat them as offworlders (who murdered Jamis). In the books everyone accepts Paul and Jessica after Paul bests Jamis and Jessica quotes some scripture, but I think it makes more logical sense that there’d be friction over these two random offworlders coming in

- I love love loved Paul speaking at the meeting of the Fremen tribe leaders in the South. He fully accepts his messiah status, exercises his power of the Voice + his prescience as a way to command all the Fremen under his name

- I’m a big fan of omitting the two-year time skip, so with that I’m glad Leto II was skipped over entirely. I always felt that Leto II was an unnecessary character addition to the book, especially when he just dies and everyone sort of goes “oh well” and moves on, so I’m glad it’s omitted.

- another interesting choice was to paint Jessica as a straight up villain in comparison to the way her book counterpart was not. The movie Jessica we see here is seemingly corrupted by the Water of Life: she walks around talking to herself (Alia) and scheming Paul’s ascent to Lisan-Al Gaib. She knows about the Holy War, which is the very thing Paul is trying to prevent, yet she expresses no concern about bringing it to fruition. (Probably because Jessica knows it’s impossible to prevent, but still.) The very last line of the movie, where Alia asks Jessica what’s going on and Jessica says “The Holy War has begun” is just total villain in my mind— explicit acceptance of the Holy War, like it’s just another stepping stone in her plan. Plus, the fact that Paul has visions of Jessica leading him into this period of great starvation totally cements her as a villian.

- going off of that, I like that we see Jessica undergoing actual agony when she takes The Water of Life. When book Jessica and Paul take The Water of Life they accept it calmly and without obvious pain (book Jessica was sitting with her eyes closed, as if sleeping), so this physical reaction that Jessica has to the poison adds to the idea that The Water of Life did change her in a negative way.

20,000 years in the future.

Matriarchal cult of eugenisist space-nuns with weird psychic powers

Houses that resemble the royalty of medieval earth, all still obsessed with power and profit over everything else

complex religions with clear inspirations of real-world present religions (specifically catholicism and islam)

Human supercomputers?? that are also assassins??

A prison planet that creates supersoldiers by killing the weak to filter out the strongest

the main villain being the physical embodiment of sin (gluttony, lust, greed)

politics. holy war. oppression of native peoples. false prophets. cults. drugs. worms.

The Baron with hair that drags behind him like a cape, decorated with hairpins and clips that have precious stones on them.

Piter wrapping his hair around his neck like a scarf.

Feyd-Rautha with his canon black curls at last!!

Honestly, I'm not sure about Glossu. Maybe he would just be the one who keeps his hair in a bun for convenience?

Pg 226 (Dune, Frank Herbert)

House Atreides descends from King Agamemnon, but we're never told through which of his children, so here's a speculating case for each:

Orestes

This feels like the fitting (but not the only) answer. Orestes and Paul are both driven by the need to avenge their fathers' deaths through treachery by a relative. They're heirs sent away for protection, only to return to fulfill their family duties, inheriting not only their birthright but also a cursed legacy. There's also the lineage factor. Orestes marries Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen of Sparta. Since Atreides means "of Atreus" and was used to describe both Agamemnon and Menelaus as Atreus' sons, having the House descend from Orestes—and by extension, his son, Tisamenus—would unite the two family branches. House Atreides would quite literally be "of Atreus" in absolution, and Paul is already the product of generations of inbreeding by the Bene Gesserit.

Electra:

She's the most interesting, and my personal choice. Paul carries generations of his ancestors' memories and unresolved grievances, and few figures in Greek tragedy embody the latter better than Electra. She spends years unable to act, trapped in mourning and anger, awaiting for a justice she couldn't personally give. There's something poetic about her rage echoing through thousands of years until finally manifesting into descendants who get to deliver the vengeance she spent her life yearning for. And fittingly, it wasn't Paul who killed the Baron. It was Alia, his sister.

Chrysothemis:

At first, it's hard to imagine Paul and Alia descending from someone so meek that she didn't try avenging her father's death, let alone protest it, but wouldn't that be the perfect twist? The most important people often come from the most unexpected places. So imagine if House Atreides, one of the most influential noble houses who rise up to emperor-status and reshape civilizations, come from Agamemnon's most overlooked child? So imagine if House Atreides—one of the most influential noble houses, rising to imperial status and reshaping civilizations—came from Agamemnon's most overlooked child?

Iphigenia:

I know she's dead, but what if you take into account the traditions where Artemis spared her? That would mean House Atreides owes its existence not only to an act of divine mercy, but also to powers beyond its control. And isn't Paul's whole life shaped by a destiny he never fully wanted and could never truly shape as his own, much like Iphigenia's?