Revenge of the Sith notwithstanding, that heel turn may not be something audiences want to see, even if Timothée Chalamet‘s cheekbones are still gorgeous. Lynch tried to tiptoe around Paul’s terrible purpose in his own film, as well as his unmade sequel script, perhaps wisely. As discussed in my own book A Masterpiece in Disarray, Lynch’s decision to focus on the spiritual side of Herbert’s story rather than the political is the pivotal difference between his and Villeneuve’s approach.
Little Major Action
As it exists on the page, the Dune Messiah novel also follows the Hegelian Dialectic of being the antithesis to the original thesis that was Dune. Where the first book was bountiful (412 pages), Messiah is comparatively lean (256 pages). Where the first book was sprawling in terms of characters and settings, Messiah is fairly contained to Paul and his small orbit amid the palaces and city streets of Arrakeen. Where the first book features much external incident (i.e. battles), Messiah is more cerebral, concerned foremost with the five-dimensional chess game the conspirators against Paul are playing, especially considering their target can see the future. It says a lot that an actual worm heist planned by Paul’s enemies is executed entirely “off-camera” in the book, with little detail.
Where the first book ends Paul’s story on a triumphant note (with some anxiety of what is to come), the follow-up finds our hero in emotional and political freefall, and things only get worse from there. By the bittersweet end, Paul has lost his sight, his empirical power, and his beloved Chani. That is the price paid for the destruction of his enemies and the safe birth of his twin children Leto II and Ghanima. Our final glimpse of Paul has him walking off into the desert as a blind nomad doomed to die, yet declaring “now I am free” as he wanders toward exile. Up until that point, his life had been on rails, a “terrible purpose” predicated by the Bene Gesserit who set it in motion, as well as the Fremen population Paul trained to execute it. His 12-year messianic reign as Arrakis’ spice lord left the legacy of a dictator who oversaw a galactic bloodbath.
Jason Momoa Marries Who?!
Not only is Paul shown to be a false messiah, his standing as the central protagonist of the Dune Chronicles is also rendered false with the return of House Atreides’ great swordmaster, Duncan Idaho, as a reanimated, ghoula-version of himself. Even the term “ghoula” brings to mind the Jewish mythological figure of a Golem, and like the Golem Duncan looms large as the only recurring figure in all six of Herbert’s Dune novels. This is good news, as it means a return of the most bodacious Jason Momoa is inevitable. The bad news is the Duncan ghoula and the character of Paul’s little sister, Alia, share a sexually charged romantic subplot that would be gross enough with him just being a revived dead body, but is all the ickier for the fact that he’s at least 40 years old and she’s 15.
While Momoa is currently 44, this age discrepancy will luckily be mitigated (somewhat) by the fact that Alia is set to be played by 28-year-old Anya Taylor-Joy. We don’t know what age the character of Alia will be within the Dune Messiah film itself (Taylor-Joy can come off pretty young), but the jailbait aspect will likely not be present… while the May-December thing definitely remains.
Will this mean that the Messiah movie will take place considerably more years after Dune: Part Two than in the novel where it’s said to be a 12-year time jump? Probably so, especially considering that Alia was a 4-year-old by the end the first book, yet is only an unborn fetus at the end of Part Two. One of Alia’s characteristics is her rapid maturity, though, so it’s possible Taylor-Joy could be playing a girl who is a teenager that looks much older. Our money is on a bigger time jump, at least two decades after the events of Part Two.
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