Paul Atreides faces the cost of his holy war in Dune: Part 3 teaser
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I am interested they chose "Dune 3" rather than the title of the second book.
Also I hadn't thought of Paul as an anti-hero, as the article labels him, and must contemplate that.
Also I hadn't thought of Paul as an anti-hero, as the article labels him, and must contemplate that.
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I think that it's natural that Paul and Chani get back together after their breakup in Dune: Part 2 since its makers want to stay faithful to the source material. Plus a troubled lovers' reunion is probably more palatable to audiences than the weird wife-concubine rivalry that Frank Herbert put into the original novels.
What I wasn't expecting though was for God-Emperor Leto II to actually be Duncan Idaho's illegitimate child.
Paul is the protagonist, but not the hero, of the Dune series. My understanding is that Frank Herbert sought to deconstruct the stereotypical "chosen one".
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"Epic Conclusion"
Cowards! Give me God Worms and Space Dommy Mommies! Incredible trailer, though.
Cowards! Give me God Worms and Space Dommy Mommies! Incredible trailer, though.
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Same here but at least it seems they'll stop it here instead going off the deep end like the later books did.
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The speculation on followers/youtubers of Dune is it will merge part of 2 and 3 (Messiah and Children) into one like the Sci Fi mini series did too - especially given the age of the actors playing the Twins
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December 18 - I want to watch it TODAY but OTOH maybe by Dec 18 some of the ugly stuff going on right now in the outside world will have evaporated fingers crossed.
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Well, good thing the message "don't follow charismatic heroes with cults of personality into disastrous wars" was never relevant ever again.
Also, Robert Pattinson as Scytale? Jesus Christ, that's good.
Also, Robert Pattinson as Scytale? Jesus Christ, that's good.
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I feel like Dune Messiah made pretty clear that he was a protagonist but not a hero.
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Marketing. It also helps that Messiah is connected to the first book in such a way that simply calling it the next part makes perfect sense. Many fans, myself included, see Messiah as Dune 1.5.
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Albino_Boo
Ars Praefectus
He always was. The whole point of Dune is that only the corrupt achieve power.
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His Jihad ended up killing 61 billion people, wiping out forty religions, and sterilising ninety planets. So, pretty much not a hero...
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Yeah, I said I needed to ponder what the choice "Let this bad thing happen, or let this other bad thing happen" tells us about the character or ourselves.
I lean to "nothing about us," after drawing a distinction between someone who acts based on their own personal convictions of right and wrong over someone who--in the construct of this fictional universe--is fully cognizant of the butterfly effect consequences resulting from a choice.
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Incidentally, our favourite historian Bret Devereaux just published part II. of his two‑part (so far) highly technical blog series on the Fremen Jihad and the prospects of their actual* victory in it (a mild spoiler: from "not very likely" to "literally getting massacred like a bayonet charge against MBTs").
https://acoup.blog/2026/02/24/collections-warfare-in-dune-part-i-fighting-faufreluches/
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/13/collections-warfare-in-dune-part-ii-the-fremen-jihad/
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry is always a great read, highly recommended.
* if we accept some premises from the books and extrapolate from that
https://acoup.blog/2026/02/24/collections-warfare-in-dune-part-i-fighting-faufreluches/
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/13/collections-warfare-in-dune-part-ii-the-fremen-jihad/
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry is always a great read, highly recommended.
* if we accept some premises from the books and extrapolate from that
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But despite all that bloodshed, Paul is always choosing the lesser evil to head off a greater one, so in that sense he could be called a hero.
Despite his imperial power and perfect foresight, he's basically running a trolley problem with 90 planets on one track and 900 on the other.
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I think the clearest evidence for me of Paul's undesirable moral makeup comes from his mentat training, which is unfortunately left out of the movies.
In the novel, his knowingly allowing his firstborn to die during his siege on Arrakeen and the Emperor's fortress was certainly a mentat decision, driven by prescient vision. Its the first sure evidence of his overall trajectory as a character for me.
Also - I love Messiah and am nervous for major plot deviations, but the trailer rips.
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It's a trolley problem of his own making. Paul could have fucked off into exile and obscurity; he didn't, because he wanted revenge for his house and position first, last, and always.
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I will be interested to hear the reactions of people who have seen the films but not read the books. Dune is the triumphant rise to power of Paul (Lawrence of Arabia in space). Dune Messiah is a complete change of tone, it is a (Greek) tragedy.
Given the film industries obsession with 'happy endings' this could be difficult.
Given the film industries obsession with 'happy endings' this could be difficult.
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ACOUP assumes that the Fremen jihad is done via set-piece combat since the Empire's institutions mostly survive the war intact. I'm not sure if that's a valid assumption though - I think that it's more likely that the Fremen war resembled the Mongol conquests:
- Constantly recruit fresh troops from allied and conquered populations (by the time that the Horde hit Europe, most of its horse archers were actually Turkish)
- Accept any elites willing to bend the knee (House Atreides had plenty of allies before the Arrakis mess)
- Genocide anyone who dares to rebel (this explains the 90 sterilized planets)
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My recollection is the SciFi mini series had three parts for the first book, and then another three parts for the next two books.
Probably not a popular opinion, but I liked it better than either David Lynch's version or Denis Villeneuve's version. It could be I first read the books around the time those came out and it meshed together well in my head.
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This is really my main concern. The books are challenging because they take a very utilitarian / pragmatic moral stance, and Paul (and his son) are presented as pursuing the greater good in the context of the full series. I'm a little concerned we're going to get a somewhat trite and simplistic 'Paul is an antihero, who power turned into a monster' take, and Part 2 was already sort of setting us up for that in how they pivoted with Chani's character to not have Paul's back and maybe become the 'good' person in all this.
That's not the end of the world, and this will probably still be an excellent bit of sci-fi visual wonderment, but it would be a shame to jettison so much of what made the books really interesting and special for a rehash of the old 'dude rises to power and becomes evil' trope.
In the books, Paul is bad only in that he actually lacked the will to follow through with realizing the Golden Way and left it up to his son. This seems to be completely inverting that with the somewhat lazy take that the Golden Way, while saving the species, had too high of a cost to our moral sensibilities so Paul is bad, rather than conflicted, for pursuing it at all.
Edit: To be a little bit more generous, I'll allow that it's God Emperor and the later books that illuminate a lot of the stakes that make Paul not an anti-hero. I'm still just disappointed at the prospect we're going to wind up with a Marvel / Disney level lesson when Herbert gave us something so much more interesting and provocative.
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At one point Paul himself asserts that he is about ten thousand times worse than Hitler. Herbert was really trying to drive home the fact that this is not a good guy doing good things, and we should not be rooting for him.
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i"m going to have to do a road trip to see this at a proper IMAX, and not the crappy pseudo-IMAX in my home city 
even the trailer alone, wow.
even the trailer alone, wow.
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I mean, yeah. When the choice is shed untold blood as a brutal dictator, vs.
all of humanity gets wiped out by intelligent machines in the remote future
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Paul leads a galactic campaign of genocide to solidify his personal rule. He's bad.
Herbert was so clear about this he literally has Paul compare himself to Hitler.
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OptimusP83
Ars Praefectus
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That could basically be a byline for the Dune Series.
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I thought Dune part 1 and 2 were okay. I enjoyed them, but for me they didn't really capture what I love about the book. The decision to leave out the politics and world building and lore just left me a little flat. No mentats and Guild navigators etc.
On the other hand I honestly find Dune Messiah to be a bit of a slog. I get what purpose it servers in the arc, but I don't actually enjoy going through it. Last time I re-read Dune I started Messiah and just didn't have it in me to read through it again.
So maybe the film version will be a little breezier and that will be a good thing this time around? I'm guessing we're not going to see any tarot cards.
On the other hand I honestly find Dune Messiah to be a bit of a slog. I get what purpose it servers in the arc, but I don't actually enjoy going through it. Last time I re-read Dune I started Messiah and just didn't have it in me to read through it again.
So maybe the film version will be a little breezier and that will be a good thing this time around? I'm guessing we're not going to see any tarot cards.
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Against your better judgment, you secretly are agreeing with my recurrent theme of questioning the means needed to reach an outcome
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Pedantically, he makes a big mistake in his discussions about LasGuns early on though. He claims they always generalte a nuclear blast, but that's not what the books say. They say they can cause any kind of blast from a small explosion killing the gunner or the target to a nuclear explosion. That unpredictability supposedly being why they are not useful against shields even when you would be willing to accept MAD.
Also in his discussion of the Harkonnen invasion of Arrakis, where he ignores both the traitor, and the many ways House Atreides were set up in an unwinnable position, that allowed the Harkonnens to win what should have been an equal match-up between a larger Harkonnen force, but a smaller, more elite, trained Atreides force.
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Where did you get this? Did I miss that plot change in the trailer?
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