Dune 2 - A Religious Critique

no story is theologically neutral

Dune 2 is Dennis Villeneuve’s religiously motivated attempt to take a complex story and flatten it into a dogmatically faithfull interpretation of a story that will serve as a Gom Jabbar, a spiritual litmus test to determine if the viewer is a righteous human, or a heretical reprobate. The producer/director/cowriter has filled his spiritually enhanced adaptation of Frank Herbert’s beloved novel with undisguised religious polemics, under the assumption that the spiritually deprived masses of moviegoers will gladly flock to the sacred truth of his message, much as Shai Hulud faithfully answers the fervent prayers of the beating thumper.

Similar to the shadowy Bene Gesserit, the religious cult in which Villeneuve participates resists the open disclosure of their sacred beliefs, but the shape of their sacred tradition is revealed in the patterns of their opposition to heretics. It is not the “religion that is not a religion” sought by John Vervaeke, but the religion which claims it is not a religion, well named by Malcolm & Simone Collins as “The Urban Monoculture”, and colloquial referred to in their books as “The Virus” 

I have decided to write this review under the tectonic school banner because the movie perfectly illustrates the same kind of shallow thinking that comes from both sides of those obsessed with religious discourse and debate, which does virtually nothing to perpetuate or inspire the growth of actual faith.

The religious messaging of Dune 2, while attempting to correct common interpretations of the beloved science fiction novel, is hardly blasphemous in and of itself, as it reflects the status quo spirituality of Hollywood, Washington D.C., and Villeneuve’s native Canada, especially as reflected under the current spiritual guidance of the defender of the faith, King Charles, and his sovereignly appointed prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

Indeed, the entire 2 hours and 46 minutes could be viewed as an act of veneration to the Canadian people’s latest liturgical development, Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID. Villeneuve’s vision represents an entire galaxy of rebellious heretics, all of whom require the cleansing touch of the healer’s final solution, to wash away the sinful stains of their audacious attempts to impose anything on free individuals. 

The only ones worthy of salvation are the visionary director, righteous enough to see the sins of everyone else, and his on-screen avatar, the messianic heroine who boldly walks away from the temptation of submitting her will to that of a man.

Because no one is holy or righteous enough to comprehend Villeneuve’s doctrine directly, he instead uses the form of Herbert’s narrative as a parable to share the glorious truth. The spirit of Herbert glady sheds his prose to be replaced with new speeches of prophetic insight, as the spirit of Villeneuve gives utterance through mouths of Stilgar, Paul, Chani, and Jessica.

To those uninitiated viewers of the film, these revelations may seem surprising, as the film seems to very explicitly condemn religion, and faith. However, the pattern of communication reveals the religious motivation behind this polemic. 

It is not faith that is being condemned, although the director would deny that he has faith, nor is it religious devotion, as the director very clearly displays behavior of sincere devotion; rather it is the exclusivist claim of one religious system declaring supremacy against all others. 

The foreshadowing of Villeneuve’s evangelistic intent was present in the first Dune, where he ritually sacrificed Liet Kynes, the father of Chani, to create an avatar for one of the feminine goddesses of his pantheon. While this was seen by many as a rather innocuous nod to the 21st century insistence on more equitable on screen representation of sex, race, and gender minorities, the evidence of spiritual motivation has been present since the release of the first film. 

Here are some quotes from Sharon Duncan-Brewster, the actress chosen to portrays Kynes,:

“As far as Denis was concerned, it was all about concentrating on the essence of this person, not the fact that this person was a man, so that’s what we went with first,” she adds.

“I don’t think it matters that Kynes in the book is a man. I think what’s important is what Kynes stands for, and that’s definitely what Denis stayed true to.”

“This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people. Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?”¹

The quotes reveal some insightful spiritual beliefs from both the actress and the director. 

First, Dennis reveals that the “essence” Kynes is something separate from his nature as a man, indicative of the “gnostic” revelation that sex is a non-essential aspect of the physical body, a corrupt and fallen remnant of the failures of the demiurge, and thus irrelevant to a transcendent spiritual figure such as Kynes.

Brewster reveals that “what Kynes stands for '' is distinct from his role as a man, and therefore Kynes can be freed from Herbert’s casting as the father of Chani. This in turn frees Chani’s character from the trauma of a childhood suppressed by patriarchy; her emergence from the virgin sands of Arrakis reflects her origin as the embodiment of the divine feminine.

Lastly, while the first two quotes were focused on freeing the essential nature of sex from the character of Kynes, the third quote reveals that the virtuous elements of Kynes character are in fact distinctly feminine in nature. This foreshadows the prophetic revelation of female divinity that will permeate the rest of the movie.

With Chani liberated from her connection to Kynes, she is revealed to us as a divine warrior, a co-equal with other young women “from the north” (representative of heaven), who represent the voices of Holy reason in opposition to the demonic fanaticism of the patriarchal Fremen in the south.

To ensure that the importance of his message is not missed, Villeneuve makes the difficult decision to sacrifice the aesthetic purity of his film by using the narrative-breaking language to communicate a divinely inspired message, lest anyone sympathize with devil, the “southern” (symbolic of hell and damnation) Fremen are referred to as “fundamentalists” 

The insertion of this modernistic word, wakes up the viewer by reminding the faithful of the real life dangers facing civilization in our current day. While it has an unfortunate consequence on the entertainment value of the film, it is a technique that is frequently necessary, and commonly used by other directors of religious films such as Dallas Jenkins, whose series The Chosen has on several occasions has committed the lesser sin of clunky dialogue to avoid the greater danger of theological error.

However, because Villeneuve was so faithfully dedicated to the benevolent task of saving souls from damnation, he chose the clearest words to expose the seductive temptation of power that traditional religion promises its adherents. 

To ensure the protection of viewers who may go on to read the book for themselves, Villeneuve drives home to oft missed point of Frank Herbert’s novel, “charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health”, through dialogue revealing the collusion of Paul and Jessica in purposeful manipulating the simple minded desert rubes. 

Many readers fail to notice the motivation of these two, projecting heroic roles onto the mother and son, but Villeneuve, guided by the explicit words of the author, makes it quite clear. To further drive home this point, he masterfully reimagines the character of Stilgar to show the folly of those who rely on religious systems to provide meaning in life, by revealing how everything that happens can be interpreted as a sign.

In his continued crusade against the erroneous beliefs of traditional religious beliefs, Villeneuve cuts short the developmental timescale of his film. Instead of Paul steadily cultivating the allegiance of the Fremen through a series of victories over time, he uses miraculous signs and wonders to bring the desperate Fremen to a state of spiritual ecstasy, before unleashing them on the unsuspecting armies of the Emperor and the Harkonnens. The explanation from co-writer Jonathan Spaihts:

“To allow such a long time lapse inevitably would sort of cool the passions of Part One,” Spaihts says. “If Duke Leto’s death were years and years ago, then it would lessen the lingering trauma that all the characters were feeling. We wanted the heat of their passion to be fresh and their wounds to be fresh.”²

This reveals a belief that unlike Villeneuve’s religion, embodied in the cool logic of Chani, the legacy religions he preaches against are driven primarily by the manipulation of emotional triggers. To cement the allegiance of the Fremen Paul must ‘appear’ to drink the lethal water of life, then rise from this certain death, and display his powers of ‘prescience’ by revealing the religious fantasies planted in the subconscious of his thralls by the efforts of his mother’s Bene Gesserit missionaries. With the support of the irrational fundamentalists from the south, who will gladly accept the opportunity to die for Muad'Dib, he can finally conquer the empire, eradicating any remaining groups devoted to the dangerous heresies of free will and individualism.

All is not lost, however, as Chani, our Goddess of reason, whose only blemish was choosing Paul as partner to fulfill her sexual needs, now stands in opposition to all of Paul’s wicked choices. His failure to notice her contempt for him subtly reveals that he is not in fact a prescient seer of the future, but a demonic psychopath. He deceptively takes on the role of a messiah, while the only god he truly serves is the male ego. 

Ultimately this movie is most revealing of the sincere passion Villeneuve has for the eternal salvation of the movie going audience for whom he toils. The selfless devotion displayed in his imperfect attempt to correct the malicious lies of those who insist Herbert’s novel is a type of hero’s journey reveals his deep love for the common man. 

Far from being a novelty, Villeneuve’s film follows in a long tradition of artworks straddling the line between sacred veneration and ideological propaganda, a pattern exposed by such wise students of human nature as Sam Harris and Steven Pinker. 

Unfortunately, Villeneuve’s dogmatic approach to sharing his faith will fall flat on the ears of most outside his religion. As a protestant christian, it’s easy to identify the condescending attitude of those who have found succor in the type of certainty provided by affirming the infallibility of a magisterial tradition. In missing many of Herbert’s more specific critiques of the Catholic church, Villeneuve overplays his hand. 

The projection of a “blind faith” in “mystical revelations” is a commonly held mischaracterization of religious people, by those who ironically accept the claims of scientific materialism without question prior to studying religion. The Jewish scriptures are not fantasy books, but primarily history, and within the narrative confines of the book, the expectation of faith in God is contingent on what He did by delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. 

If African Americans worshiped Abraham Lincoln as a messiah for freeing their ancestors from slavery, people would be right to question his divinity, but wrong to question his role in freeing the slaves, and certainly wrong to question if they ever truly were enslaved. Faith is not built on nothing, and neither is revelation. 

The “priming” of the Bene Gesserit was done to ensure their protection - How was it done? By the missionaries providing valuable service and wisdom to the tribes they encountered. How does Jessica capitalize on this priming? By providing valuable service and wisdom to the Fremen. 

Why were the Fremen ready to follow a charismatic leader into battle against their feudal lords? Because they already had a leader preparing them in Liet Kynes. Why did they follow Kynes? Not because of mystical revelations, but because his father Pardot Kynes had shown them how to recapture water and plant crops that would turn the planet into a lush greenscape. 

Like the sort of fundamentalists he derides, Villeneuve gives more power to the devil than to his own goddesses, both male and female. His fear of the fanatical uprising of faith based movements driven by hallucinatory visions gives them far more credence than they deserve. Only someone who rarely steps foot in a church believes that religion is as powerful a motivator as Villeneuve seems to imply. 

By collapsing the faith of simple believers into a form of magical thinking, he reveals the beliefs of his own cult, whose spellcraft can transform male to female and back with a decree from the goddess within. The simple faith of most religious people corresponds to the steady rhythms of everyday life. They may pray for rain, but they still plant their seeds. The strawman Fremen of Villeneuve’s Arakkis have far more in common with the zealots of silicon valley, who expect the Lisan Al-Gaib of Artificial Intelligence to emerge from the silicon sands in the form of a computer chip, instead of a human messiah.

The ticket sales reveal that many people have already heard the prophet Dennis and his message of fire and brimstone. The real question is how many people will come back? I suspect that as in the case of most truly fundamentalist movements, the number of true believers will always be quite small. 

1. https://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/50419/1/denis-villeneuve-dune-changes-gender-of-major-character-sharon-duncan-brewster

2.  https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/dune-2-changes-timeline-time-jump-alia-jon-spahits-interview