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Just got back from it. Very good, I’ll score it 8.5/10 but I have to say, a few of the changes really surprised me, to the point that I’m not really sure if it’s more or less book accurate than the 1984 David Lynch movie. As far as book accuracy is concerned nothing holds a candle to the 2000 Scyfy Channel miniseries. The big changes from the book that surprised me:
In Lynch’s version from 1984 the big changes were the inclusion of the Weirding Module “sound guns” which were truly bizarre, and then the “they all lived happily ever after” ending which is a farce to anyone that’s read Dune Messiah.
1. No Alia - which of course leads to Paul killing the Baron himself in this version compared to Alia doing the deed.
2. Drawing out the Emperor to Arrakis by threatening to expose his involvement in bringing down House Atreides as opposed to in the book where they draw him out along with the collective armies of the Houses of Landsraad by bringing spice production to a standstill. It’s supposed to be a big revelation towards the very end that Maud’dib is Paul.
3. The exclusion of the Spacing Guild. In the books the Guild basically forces the Emperor to step down and accept Paul as the new Emperor. The Guild effectively is the real power in the Dune universe, yet in this movie they literally weren’t even in part 2 AT ALL.
4. The reason for the Jihad at the very end was changed. In this movie they say that the Great Houses won’t accept Paul as Emperor. In the book they do accept him an Emperor — what causes the Jihad is that accepting Paul as Emperor isn’t good enough, the Fremen want everyone to accept Paul as the messiah, the Mahdi. The Jihad is truly religious in nature, while this movie imo didn’t really set that up.
5. Paul didn’t train the Fremen in the movie to become the ultimate fighting force. In the book and miniseries Paul trains the Fremen all the combat techniques he learned from Gurney and Dunan, but more important than that he taught them all the Weirding Way of the Bebe Gesserit to make them the greatest warriors in the universe, even more deadly than the Emperor’s Saurdakar. That never happened in this movie, and inexplicably the Saurdakar were made into jobbers in part 2.
6. In this Paul threatens to use nuclear weapons to blow up the spice fields. In the book he threatens to use water to kill all the Sandworms, as it’s revealed in the books that the worms actually make the spice. The ecology of Dune is important in the books but it’s a complete non factor in the movie.
Probably a few others that just aren’t coming to mind
2. Drawing out the Emperor to Arrakis by threatening to expose his involvement in bringing down House Atreides as opposed to in the book where they draw him out along with the collective armies of the Houses of Landsraad by bringing spice production to a standstill. It’s supposed to be a big revelation towards the very end that Maud’dib is Paul.
3. The exclusion of the Spacing Guild. In the books the Guild basically forces the Emperor to step down and accept Paul as the new Emperor. The Guild effectively is the real power in the Dune universe, yet in this movie they literally weren’t even in part 2 AT ALL.
4. The reason for the Jihad at the very end was changed. In this movie they say that the Great Houses won’t accept Paul as Emperor. In the book they do accept him an Emperor — what causes the Jihad is that accepting Paul as Emperor isn’t good enough, the Fremen want everyone to accept Paul as the messiah, the Mahdi. The Jihad is truly religious in nature, while this movie imo didn’t really set that up.
5. Paul didn’t train the Fremen in the movie to become the ultimate fighting force. In the book and miniseries Paul trains the Fremen all the combat techniques he learned from Gurney and Dunan, but more important than that he taught them all the Weirding Way of the Bebe Gesserit to make them the greatest warriors in the universe, even more deadly than the Emperor’s Saurdakar. That never happened in this movie, and inexplicably the Saurdakar were made into jobbers in part 2.
6. In this Paul threatens to use nuclear weapons to blow up the spice fields. In the book he threatens to use water to kill all the Sandworms, as it’s revealed in the books that the worms actually make the spice. The ecology of Dune is important in the books but it’s a complete non factor in the movie.
Probably a few others that just aren’t coming to mind
In Lynch’s version from 1984 the big changes were the inclusion of the Weirding Module “sound guns” which were truly bizarre, and then the “they all lived happily ever after” ending which is a farce to anyone that’s read Dune Messiah.