Dune: Part 2 robbed me of 2 ½ hours of my life. Yes, I know Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are in it, but the storyline was just not worth my time. After watching the first movie, I was left in confusion with how everything fit together; I had expected it to end with a slight cliffhanger. But after watching Dune: Part 2, I am left dumbfounded. SPOILER ALERT: If you didn’t watch it, don’t. I’ll summarize the storyline for you so that you don’t waste 5+ hours watching both movies.
The storyline of both movies, to my understanding of the fragmented film, is set in the year 10191. The story is of a Duke on a different planet (Duke Leto Atreides), wanting to take over the planet of Arrakis, due to its desert full of rich spices that are harvested by machines. These spices were absolutely necessary for space travel, as they could travel as fast as the speed of light using the spice as fuel. Despite this rich nature, the heat of the planet is harsh: temperatures could reach 158 degrees Fahrenheit, and they have to worry about the giant sandworms that can gobble them up if they don’t walk weirdly (sandwalk), since sandworms are attracted to rhythmic steps. Anyway, the duke, his wife (Lady Jessica), and his son, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) were sent to the planet to take advantage of it, since it had a lot to offer and they had been under the rule of the Harkonnens. These guys have super pale skin, are completely bald, and cannot bear the heat of Arrakis. They are only allowed to mine the spice on the planet. The natives on the planet, known as the Fremen, have blue eyes due to long exposure to the spice and aren’t taken seriously since they don’t have an established government to give away their spices to the galaxy.
They go to this planet and make a deal with a figurehead of the Fremen to allow the Duke to harvest some of their spice, with the deal that they would leave the rest of the desert to the Fremen and free them from the Harkonnens’ rule. They are almost killed by sandworms. The dude is then like: “Hey, we had to abandon our spice so we wouldn’t die! You sent the sandworm straight to us!!” And they had an argument with the Fremen. The Fremen obviously don’t want foreigners, so they try to kill them multiple times.
Paul Atreides “isn’t like the other girls.” Paul thinks that his family shouldn’t try to occupy Arrakis and that they should leave it to the Fremen. He also has magic that he is being taught by his mother to control. He continuously has these weird visions of this girl over and over again, and sees himself becoming one of the Fremen. The people of Arrakis, upon his arrival, call out to him. They believe that he is “Lisan al-Gaib,” or their messiah that will deliver their planet from evil and create a green paradise, and there’s a whole prophecy about it, too. Paul doesn’t want them to believe that he is the messiah since he believes the Fremen should rule themselves tribal style.
Fast forward to the end of the first movie and the start of the second: the OG Duke is dead. Paul meets the girl of his dreams, Chani (Zendaya), and they fall in love. He and his mother become part of the one Fremen tribe that they found. His mother doesn’t want to stay on Arrakis, but Paul knows that he is supposed to be one of the Fremen. The mother goes to the South, where the land is more developed, and Paul goes on with Chani and her tribe. They kill. A lot. The people that they kill are always trying to take over the desert, but since Paul is part of the Fremen, he fights on behalf of them.
The mother drinks a mysterious blue juice (the Water of Life) and almost dies, since it was actually poisonous, turning her into a reverend mother. This means she is a religious figure and is bowed down upon the religious Fremen of the South. Paul is like, “she wasn’t meant to drink that, and she only survived because we’re both immune to the poison haha,” and leaves his mother in the care of Southern Fremen. He continues to have the weird dreams that show a horrible future, famine and war caused by himself. He reunites with his old trainer from his home planet (Gurney Halleck). This guy tells Paul (our Timmy) that he has access to enough atomic bombs to destroy the whole planet. He leads him to them and says that he now has enough power to take over the planet. Paul is like: “But I don’t want that much power… that’s how my scary visions will come true!” He plots with the other Fremen, including Chani, to threaten nuclear war against the Emperor. Paul fights the heir to the emperor in an epic fight scene. Although they were both incredibly skilled fighters, our Timmy wins.
Paul, however, does the same dumb thing as his mother did and drinks the blue juice! Him and his mother take over the planet of Arrakis, as the prophecy foretold. To do this, he cheats on Chani by forcing the daughter of the emperor into marriage. This girl doesn’t even care about him! It was just for him to gain political and economic power. Chani is upset, as she should be. The mother was pregnant the whole time and the unborn baby girl “tells her things” they both have blue eyes now and in the end, want the holy war to begin.
Moral of the story: everyone wants power and money. Some may be transparent in their intentions, but others like to gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss their way into getting what they want. Although, I could tell they put a lot of effort into the movie. The costume, set design, and CGI are all phenomenal, and I couldn’t help but marvel at that. However, the story was a lot like Stalin rising to power during the Russian Revolution, or Hitler rising to power to start World War II, with Paul Atriedes (Timmy) being that figurehead.
Now there will probably be a part 3 in another 3 years, where you will sit in the movie theater, questioning your life decisions for close to 3 hours.