Howdy all!

Just wanted to share my thoughts on Dune 2. To give a brief background: I have never read the books and had seen only the David Lynch movie cut and the Alan Smithee cut that someone posted on YouTube (a longer cut using unused footage upgraded as best as the fans behind it could piece it together than many fans of the 1984 herald as the much better version). Alan Smithee is a pseudonym that directors use when they do not want to be associated with a project, and David Lynch had such a terrible experience making the 1984 film, he wants have nothing to do with any other cuts of the film and move away from it, despite it still having his name as director in the original cut.

I truly enjoyed the Dune movie made by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve which came out in 2021. I thought the acting was solid, visually stunning, and a great world full of intriguing politics almost similar to what Game of Thrones had introduced along with interesting ideas how that world operated. Comparing it to the 1984 film, I think there was a missed opportunity to do something visually spectacular when moving across long distances in space as they did when we see the family from the House Atreides (protagonists) travel to the dune planet Arrakis to take over operation to mine and distill a rare red substance referred to as Spice found in minute quantities on the surface (if I understood that correctly). I thought the film ended at a weak moment, where Paul fights a Fremen (a native of a planet) which seemingly fulfills a local prophecy. There is much action that takes place before that leads to several deaths, so Paul (Timothée Chalamet) killing a Fremen to prove his worth to the other local inhabitants didn't seem to carry as much weight. I feel like they should have reserved this scene for the second movie, and trimmed some of the excess story elements to reduce the film by 20-30 minutes. After watching the second one, I believe this more to be the case.

Watching the second movie, we see the introduction of the galactic Emperor (Christopher Walken) and a member of the main antagonistic family house in these two films: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler). We only hear of the emperor in the first film, and we finally get a chance to see him on-screen in this film, although for a few short moments, and Christopher Walken was either just not the right choice or didn't have much to really do with this character. Austin Butler was the true star in this second film, as he seemed to elevate every scene he was in, wondering if there would have been a way to introduce his character in the first film.

This movie is still visually stunning as the previous film. One of the main problems I have is the story. Not much really happens besides Paul continuing to fulfill a local prophecy, which he seems to reject at first, then changes his minds and starts his "chosen one" story arch, almost out-of-the-blue. Perhaps a different actor could have done this better, or making it seem more passage of time takes place during the course of the movie would have been better. We know this is within a 9-month span because Paul's mother is pregnant, and by the end of the movie is still carrying child. In the previous movie and also from I understood in the novels, she has the baby and there is much more passage of time. Paul and local Fremen Chani (Zendaya) also have a child in the book, but that has been stripped out in this movie, which brings me to my second major complaint about the movie.

Chani becomes a generic girlfriend that questions Paul's choices and if he loves her or not. When he decides to become the spiritual warrior of legend, she strays away from him and becomes somewhat angry with the people supporting this path. Again, I have not read the books, but from what I gathered from other reviewers of the film who are fans of the books, they said book Chani was very supportive of Paul. But with the decision to make her seemingly disappointed in his decision, it just reminded me of a lot of romance movies in the 90s where the man is trying to be successful in his career, but it creates strife between him and his wife, and the wife gets angry because he's not home enough, resulting in the man quitting his career for another and quieter life. In real life, you would actually need someone there to support your career decisions as it benefits both parties, but the 90s romantic films seemed to really start pushing this message, and I feel like that gave Chani this generic character plucked from those movies and placed in this film where it didn't really belong. Perhaps they should have stuck to the book and carried on with the child plot and created a more interesting aspect of the characters that way and earned the 3-hour movie span that the movie takes up.

Unfortunately, the viewers can see how the story unfolds, and there aren't many twist and turns like the first movie had. Perhaps this is because not much happens in the book during this stage of the story, but an hour could have been cut out of this movie and the story would have been told the same. Also, not that Zendaya was bad, because I did see Aquaman and perhaps Amber Heard is one of the worst compliments to a hero in recent film history, but she just didn't seem to come up with choices to keep her character interesting, which may have been the way her character was changed too. However, I have seen actors with terrible scripts able to use their acting abilities to overcome any sloppiness of the writing. She just seems only as capable as the script provides and instructs. I didn't really see many other people mention this, so this may just be me, and I am certainly no actor.

Overall, I give this move 3 out of 5 paws. I would only recommend watching it on a streaming service that you already have or rent it for a few bucks, because, while visually stunning and a few interesting characters and cool scenes at the first of the movie, you will find moments throughout the movie you could almost sleep through and not miss much of what's going on.