On March 1 Director Dennis Villeneuve released the much awaited sequel to his hit movie “Dune Part 1” that came out almost two years ago in October of 2021.
The movies are based off of the original sci fi books written by Frank Herbert which were released in the 1960s. Soon after a movie was released in 1984 under the title of “Dune” but it unfortunately did not perform well at all. Mainly due to very poor CGI and acting. This performance did not warrant a sequel so that endeavor ended with one movie.
The 2021 movie brought in 407 million dollars at the box office so one could only have expected the same success with the sequel. What movie goers and film experts did not expect, was that the sequel would end up bringing in a mind boggling 700 million dollars world wide within 8 weeks of it being released.
This money is more than deserved. “Dune Part 2” was truly a cinematic masterpiece just as its predecessor but only magnified.
“Dune Part 1” was visually beautiful and a good movie but it ended up being a little lackluster at the end of the movie. In hindsight this was truly needed because it built up an incredible base for “Dune Part 2” to thrive.
“Dune Part 1” walked so “Dune Part 2” could run.
The main plot of “Dune Part 2” was continuing the character arc and development of the protagonist Paul Attredes played by Timothy Chalamet. After the destruction of his family and clan, Attredes is stranded to live with the natives of the planet Arakkis. These people are called the Fremen and they are religious people who believe in a messiah figure.
The driving theme is that Paul Atredes is this messiah figure called the “Lisan Al Gaib.” In the Fremen tongue this term means “The voice from the outer world.” He spends the first half of the movie proving himself to the Fremen leaders all while being tracked down by the people who killed his family, looking to finish off the Atredes lineage.
By the end of the movie, the efforts to kill Paul proves to be fruitless. He grows more powerful and gains support from all of the Fremen believing he is truly the Lisan Al Gaib.
This whole story is told throughout two different movies spanning around five hours of total watch time (if you watched them back to back.) If this seems like a lot of time then you’re not alone, I originally thought the same. Though, I can say that I was completely enthralled for each movie.
The movie was filmed in the deserts of Jordan which truly adds to the beauty of the cinematography. While CGI is always improving and can sometimes look completely like real life, I feel as if nothing can beat filming in an actual location.
With that being said, though some of the cinematics that make the movie so great cannot be brought to physical life. When it comes to these things, such as fleets of starships or giant sand creatures, the CGI is truly amazing.
In fact, one of the best scenes that still resonates in my mind from the movie was almost entirely CGI. This scene is when the Fremen attacked the main imperial installation on Arakkis. They are being transported on multiple sandworm creatures and attacking a massive military installation. The design of this scene is truly impeccable, a visual masterpiece for action movie lovers.
As I had previously stated, “Dune Part 2” is a continuation of the character development of main character Paul Atredes. This movie does an incredible job in moving his character along in development.
At the end of “Dune Part 1,” he is a naive teenager who just lost everything. We kick off “Dune Part 2” with the opposite. Paul is a hardened desert rat and becomes truly one with the Fremen. He has learned their ways and even some of their language. This is only the start of how he changes in this sequel.
We see him once he has become acclimated to life in the deserts of Arakkis, but leave him at the end where he fully takes on the persona of the leader of the Fremen. Throughout the movie, events transpire and people are in Paul’s ear so much to where he cannot deny who he is. Fans love this transformation, going from a sort of standoffish teenager to a confident and more than capable military leader of an entire planet’s people.
This is just a small representation of how amazing this movie truly was. I cannot wait to see what Villeneuve has in store for the third and final movie of the trilogy. As of now there is no release date, or estimate but we can expect it to be a long time before we know anything of that sort. Until then, “Dune Part 1” can be found in streaming services such as Hulu, HBO Max and more. “Dune Part 2” however is harder to find, only being available for rent on select streaming services such as Apple TV, Youtube TV, and Amazon Prime Video.
