Dune 2 - An Ecological Critique

Stories, like the environment, are fickle things to mess with.

Dune 2 is the culminating effort in Dennis Villeneuve’s attempt to take a complex story of nearly 900 pages, or 21 hours of audio, and compress it into a format digestible to the average moviegoer. The director/producer/scriptwriter has made difficult choices in paring down the material to adapt it for screen, but he may have lacked the prescience of Herbert’s main character in calculating the unforeseen consequences of his choices.

I have decided to write this review under the Tectonic School banner because the movie perfectly illustrates the same kind of shallow reactionism that often comes from both sides of those who view themselves in some sort of “culture war”, while ignoring the dynamic interplay of various forces that influence the actual change and growth of culture.

The YouTuber @teltale succinctly demonstrates Herbert’s deep knowledge and thorough understanding, if not expertise in multiple fields of study, namely, ecology, politics, and religion. His perception of how these fields affect each other helped him predict plausible outcomes in a believable fashion. 

This is important because increasingly our world has become dominated by specialization and expertise. No one may question an expert without an equivalent level of credentials. The holder of a master's degree in a given field may in fact know quite a lot about a given subject, their professional opinion can be discarded out of hand by someone who holds a PhD, and an alumnus of a lesser school must defer to the one who graduated from an Ivy League school, and so on, and so on, through the long lists of professional accolades.

But this betrays the basic goal for which the university was formed, to create universal scholars, men who were learned in a variety of subjects, whose conclusions would be informed by their interdisciplinary understanding of important discoveries in other fields. 

While such scholars still had areas of expertise, they had enough knowledge of each field of study to have helpful discourse with their colleagues who focused on other areas. Specialists in ecology, religion, and political theory could all confer and discuss the interplay between these different fields of study. 

This is important because nothing in life is fully independent, and everything that happens is interdependent. Both sides of the culture war seem to ignore this fact; for the right wingers it certainly seems to be done out of ignorance, for those on the left, who currently control most of the levers of institutional control, it may be done out of wisdom.

In Dune, Frank Herbert does an expert job of communicating this. The spice is the key to interplanetary trade and travel, with the spacing guild holding a monopoly. This is in tension with the large standing army of the emperor, who is more powerful than any single great house, but weaker than their combined might, and beneath this first level power struggle, the pattern is repeated in a myriad of lesser conflicts and alliances, with betrayal and collusion all the way down. 

This means that a slight change at any point in the system could have dramatic and unforeseen consequences in other areas. History has proven this fact time and again. From the introduction of invasive plants and animals to the spread of disease, simple choices have had devastating unforeseen consequences. Human beings in their limited predictive ability can’t avoid making some mistakes; although we can learn from past mistakes, new scenarios always arise. We aren’t all stumbling in the darkness though. A person’s ability to accurately recognize the similarities between past and current situations will grant them a distinct advantage in avoiding pitfalls. This ability to accurately predict the outcome of our choices, when combined with a telos that desires a particular outcome, could be called wisdom, and there is often an inverse correlation between the measure of wisdom a person possesses and their happiness. 

This explains both the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ and why Shakespeare wrote “heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Being in a position of informed leadership is not an enviable position. Dune explores the concept of one such leader whose wisdom extends beyond predictions of likely outcomes, and is manifested in true visions of the possible future - a genetic gift known as prescience, unlocked by exposure to the volatile chemicals of the spice mélange. 

As much as people want to argue about whether or not Dune is a hero's journey, it is undeniably a book about economics, ecology, and political power struggles, and the young man who can see the results of his choices in the interplay of all three. 

It was the fascinating possibility of turning a desert into a paradise that first fueled Herbert’s imagination. It may be that the young Paul Atreides is an anti-hero, but no one would consider the Harkonnens to be anything other than villains. The Bene Gesserit garner no sympathy as they are entirely devoted to their own interests regardless of the trauma it inflicts even on their own initiates, and the only defense one could make for House Corrino would be based on a belief in the divine right of kings.  

So If Paul is not the hero, then who can we root for in this story? If there is one character that provides a true message of hope to oppressed people of Arrakis, it’s the Planetologist Pardot Kynes, a pure idealist completely consumed with the challenge of making Arakkis habitable for its desert dwelling Fremen, regardless of the impact on the production of spice. 

In a story prior to the tale of Paul Atreides, Pardot is a foreigner who wins over the hostile natives by his selfless love of science, a man who’s joy comes simply from encountering and understanding the unknown wonders of nature, and a fascination with the possible. 

He wins the Fremen over with his positive vision, and begins showing them how simple actions can be performed to reclaim control over the water of Arakkis. He convinces these keepers of ancient traditions that the effects of many small actions can result in big changes, and the diligent pursuit of a future goal can change what once seemed impossible into the inevitable.

By the time of the events covered in Dune, Pardot has passed away, and his role of Imperial Planetologist has been taken up by his son, Liet Kynes. Kynes knows more than anyone else that small changes made with intentionality can have a big impact over time. But growing up among the Fremen, he also understands the dangers of the desert, and the Imperial stewards of Arakkis, the Harkonnens.

Of any characters in Dune, Kynes would be the one to best grasp the far reaching implications of changing any single element within a story. Herbert also understood that stories, like ecosystems, all hang together, and changing one aspect, especially early on, may have drastic and unforeseen consequences on other parts of the tale.

Little was done with the character of Dr. Kynes other than being recast as a woman, and erasing any evidence of her/his parental relationship with Chani. In many circumstances, there is little to no impact by a man being replaced by a woman. But depending on how an actor prepares to embody a character, such changes could have unforeseen consequences later on.

Here are some quotes from Sharon Duncan-Brewster, who portrayed the Kynes in Villeneuve’s first Dune movie:

“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

This could all be true of course, and unobjectionable. If someone is writing a story from the ground up, for any role centered around intellectual or professional competency, why not put a woman? The traitorous Dr. Yueh, the Mentant adviser Thufir Hawat, or even the Fremen warrior Stilgar could have been portrayed as female with little consequence. But within the narrative of Dune, Kyne’s character is also the father of Chani. 

While someone could speculate and say that Kynes is now the mother of Chani, it’s never mentioned in the film. Considering the integrity in which Villeneuve approached the aesthetic choices of his film, if we were meant to believe that Sharon Duncan-Brewster is the biological mother of Zendaya, we would have to assume that her father was one of the pasty white Harkonnens. In reality though, it seems that the familial bond is not present within the cinematic world.

This choice fundamentally changes the character of Chani in the second film. In the book, Paul and Chani both experience the loss of a visionary father, with a positive vision for improving the situation for the people of Arrakis. Chani’s understanding of her place on the planet is just as much informed by her family's duty to steer the future of the Fremen as Paul’s is to House Atreides. 

The interactions between Paul, Chani, Jessica and the other characters in Dune 2 seem to confirm the erasure of the familial relation of Chani and Kynes. If Chani had been someone who had just lost a mother, it would have created a similar bond between her and Paul, but it would have also created a different dynamic between Chani and Jessica. 

Perhaps Chani would have reached out to the new maternal figure, establishing or strengthening the connection that we see at the end of Herbert’s novel; or perhaps Jessica would have been resistant towards such a connection, as she worried about Paul’s choice to get involved with a woman who brought no strategic political alliance through her union. 

The book gives a much longer timeline of events that Villeneuve’s movie, as about two years transpire between the events around Jessica’s ascension to the role of Reverend Mother, and Paul’s rise to leadership of the military campaigns against the Harkonnens. Because placing the time jump as it occurs in the book between the two films would have significantly lengthened the first film, it was done away with, and the timeline was condensed. 

Under this revised timeline of events, questions about Chani’s parentage can be easily put aside, as the film makes it clear that Chani is now a completely unmoored character from her literary counterpart. This makes it easier to do away with another narrative arc from the novel, the story of Paul and Chani’s firstborn son, Leto. 

In seeking to understand the reasons for these omissions, we can go directly to one of the sources, co-writer Jonathan Spaihts:

Spaihts also acknowledged other characters cut when the timeline was condensed. Most notable is Leto Atreides, the child Paul and Zendaya have during his two years with the Fremen. But Spaihts points out that readers never meet Leto; he’s mentioned when Paul learns he’s been killed off-page. “He has grief about it, but has little time for that grief because in the middle of conducting a war,” Spaihts says.

“So the arrival and departure of that off-stage baby barely ruffles the waters of the novel itself, and really would’ve been a peculiar distraction in the film.”²

This belief that such an event “barely ruffles the waters of the novel” betrays the considerable impact that such an event would have on the motivations of the characters. While brief in mention, the consequences of these events are pivotal. One aspect is that both characters are irrevocably changed as a result of becoming parents; and that it further unites them as the only representative pro-natalist cultures in the story. 

The Harkonnens are pure hedonists; while the sexuality of the Baron is not addressed in the movie, his strong homosexual/pedophilic tendency is clearly portrayed within the novel as the main reason why he is raising nephews to inherit his position instead of his own children. The Harkonnen culture is fueled by excess; by overharvesting the spice, further damaging the ecology of Arakkis, they can avoid the consequences of their actions, and artificially sustain populations and infrastructure by purchasing more slaves to fulfill roles in their reproductively stilted culture. If they were to remain unchallenged, the internal destruction of their society is virtually guaranteed. 

The Corinnos and the Bene Gesserits both view human reproduction in purely utilitarian terms. Children are a means to an end, but only if they are the type of children suitable for the purposes needed. This is why Jessica is chastised for bearing the duke a son out of love. The cynical Bene Gesserit, to whom love is a foreign concept, assume that it was her desire to bear their fabled Kwisatz Haderach, yet Jessica is ignorant of her role within their breeding program. 

The source of Jessica’s love is the reciprocation of Duke Leto’s love for her, it is a product of Caladanian culture, exhibited in the Duke’s laments that he did not ignore Jessica’s advice by making her his wife. This love also inspires her decision to conceive another child, and the reason for bearing a daughter is not out of any allegiance towards her Bene Gesserit handlers, but to protect her son Paul from a potential rival.

The Fremen similarly represent a pro-natalist culture, although of the traditional variety that encourages the birth of many children because of the harsh conditions of life that make infant mortality rates much higher in the developing world. This is clearly portrayed in the social customs described in the novel, though most aspects of Sietch life are absent from the film.

Understanding the significance of childbirth in their respective cultures means that Paul and Chani, in the midst of their turbulent and chaotic life as refugees, have found an island of hope, an eschatological precursor to the paradisiac future of their world. This blessed hope for the future is what is snatched away, and the reason why Paul, whose prescience has been limited until this point, decides to drink the water of life in an attempt to unlock his powers. The motivation of Paul Atreides ultimate confrontation with the emperor and the Harkonnens was to prevent the future death of his own children. 

Without the inclusion of the birth and death of the baby Leto, the writers are forced to conclude that the motives are purely revenge. 

“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.”³

Of course, true heroes are not motivated solely by revenge; and here Villeneuve and Spaihts have found their means of turning Paul Atreides into the anti-hero they believe Herbert always intended him to be. 

Because the necessity of a hero is inescapable, to highlight the more villainous aspirations of Paul, they project the righteous motivation on Chani. Thus, the central conflict of the movie is between these two lovers. However, unlike in the book, the only connection they have in the movie is sexual attraction, which can easily lead good women into the arms of treacherous villains. 

However, as is always the case, there are other consequences of these changes in the fabric of the story. The economic element, so central to the novel, is reduced to a blip. The spacing guild, who hold the monopoly on space travel, have vanished. Spice as the element that keeps the galaxy moving ceases to be important. It’s reduced to a symbol of economic value, and through its destruction, a means of gaining the attention of the Emperor and his lackeys, the Harkonnens. 

Villeneuve said that his reasoning for changing the character of Chani was a means of clarifying the message he believed frank herbert intended, summarized in a quote written over two decades after the novel was first published: 

“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health."⁴

But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that however much Herbert saw a danger in charismatic leaders, that was not the central thesis of Dune. His fascination was sparked in how these intricate systems play off each other. History is just as much shaped by geography, and weather, and access to water as it is to the various and conflicting motivations of human beings. That is the most thought provoking aspect of Dune, but by indiscriminately pulling on the threads of Herbert’s story, Villeneuve’s adaptation has collapsed. The depth and complexity of the written book has been flattened into a beautifully executed, but uncompelling piece of cinema.

It’s just like Star Wars, but the bad guy wins. 

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

3. Ibid

4.  Frank Herbert, UCLA, 1985