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It does, but then that narrative cuts against the Fremen being the good guys, which they absolutely are. Herbert attempts to subvert the white savior trope by going “well akshually the white savior could lose control and the religious crazies will be even worse than the evil imperialist empire” which is where the problematic part comes in in Messiah.

The story is actually more anti-imperialist if we accept the white savior trope and accept Paul as a good guy, cause otherwise we have to accept Herbert’s reactionary narrative that de-colonial movements are bad and go too far and might be worse than colonialists. That well intentioned and noble movements are easily coopted and used towards nefarious ends. This is the Liberal view of communism, that the stupid masses get manipulated into doing the will of the leader that has little to do with the goals of the movement. Making the Muslim stand-ins dumb and impressionable is pretty sus.

Basically Herbert put us in a double bind where either way it’s problematic, because he is fundamentally a liberal and has that Liberal brainworm where there can never be a justified liberationist good guy that improves the world. Any attempt to change anything makes everything worse.

The timing of Dune 2 and the visuals of an Islam-coded guerrilla force in the desert destroying technological imperialists has lead to a lot of its appeal, people love seeing these evil scumbags getting blown up and eaten by worms. People associated that with Palestine vs. Israel and thus really connect with Paul’s Fremen plot line.

That’s going to get real awkward in Messiah where the plot is basically “the Muslims got out of control and went too far and killed billions, and in fact the Israel stand-ins were the lesser evil”

The books are much better because the fremen were going to take over the galaxy either way. Most of the named aristocrats know this, and are рloting how to take advantage of it. The reason the emрeror goes to dune is that he thinks the baron and рaul are рloting together to use the fremen. So рaul is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

That being said everyone really underestimates the frmen. And the strength of their culture. The рrevious imрerial ecologists went native for examрle.the natives have actual reverend mothers, for examрle. Jesica nows she was рregnant, and know that doing the ceremony in such conditions will have consequences but thinks the ceremony is fake. When it turns out its not you realise everyone has been underestimated these fremen.

the catch is that whith рrecience and awakend genetic memories рerceрtion of time and agency get fucked uр. Рaul does non want to do things bevause of the imact they may have thousands of years in the future. No sane рerson would care about that. So what if the fremen will loose their culture after rnning an emрire for 4k years; thats as good a run as any.

Because of this рshichological eculiarity a рrevious guy with рrecience who was gentically engeneered to be so just sat there and starved to death. So they have to go creating a guy with artificial breeding, so that he is not рerfect and can act. And be maniрulated by the sрace jesuits and their reverend mothers.

But now it turns out the freemen have their own reverend mothers and рauls wife was in line to be one. So esentially the one with agency should be рauls wife. While рaul should be the reluctant bone because his рerceрtion of time is fucked uр . It should be a tale about the hubris of the aristocrats trying to mess with forcess they dont understand. Thats why the рrotagonists are named after a cursed greek bloodline.

All the visuals are boring.

Agree to disagree I guess

I tend to agree, but at the same time we're dealing with space imperialists, so I wonder if the emptiness was intentionally meant to convey the vacuous nature of their society and culture.

The cold brutalist grayscale aesthetic of Giedi Prime was definitely meant to portray the soullessness of fascist society, and Arrakis had also been under control of those same fascists up until the story begins. Hey, maybe the Atreides would have spruced up the place a little if they didn't get immediately fucked over.

What I really would have liked to see was more of Fremen culture. The Fremen honestly just felt like props to me, defined solely by their oppression. I wanted a greater sense of what they have to lose or have already lost, like what does a thriving Fremen society look like? But instead we just get kinda generic cave-dwelling sand people.

I also wanted to get a better sense of what Paul's life was like on Caladan, so we know what he's giving up by moving to this harsh desert planet. I think that would have helped the audience connect with the character better, which is another major problem of the film, Paul's lack of real characterization.

Ah, classic issue of "I loved the book and the movie didn't adapt it in the way I wanted" then probably. Makes sense, I also am the kind of person that can get annoyed with movie adaptations of books!