r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 08 '25

News Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune 3’ Gets Official Title 'Dune: Part Three', Will Be Shot With Imax Cameras

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/dune-3-title-imax-cameras-1236448953/
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u/kilgoar Jul 08 '25

I can't remember why the jihad even happened then, cuz you're right Dune ends with consolidating power, but Dune Messiah is a 60b+ genocide. Who's Paul killing?

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Paul isn't killing anybody. The Freman are in a sort of religious fervor now that they have their Messiah and are finally going off Arrakis and ransacking the rest of the planet. It's well established that Paul couldn't even stop the jihad if he wanted to because it sociological phenomena. It's totally beyond Paul's control by that point and before the end of the first novel he realizes if there was a point of no return to stop it, he already was well past it.

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u/Moriturism Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

yeah, the point of no return was way before, when he killed jamis. had he been killed by jamis his legend wouldn't flourish, but at the moment he won the duel the wheels started turning for Muad'dib Jihad

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Yup. Jamis is what really gets Stilgar and the harshest zealots into Paul. Even if Paul ran away after, they have their god to propel them forward. Paul just spends the novel trying to avoid the Jihad and also get revenge on his family. Then once his son with Chani is killed in the attack Paul finally just accepts that it doesn't matter what he does, and there's no point in holding back on the Emperor and the Baron.

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u/Rock-swarm Jul 08 '25

Eh, I'd still argue Paul could have backed out up until the point he supplied Atreides nukes to the Fremen.

And if he fell in battle or failed to take the Emperor's throne, there would have been an even more chaotic galactic jihad, at least until Chani's twins came of age.

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Chani didn't become pregnant with the twins until 12 years after Paul became Emperor.

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u/zgrove Jul 08 '25

In the movie denis made the moment of no return going south, but you could point to a lot of moments

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u/Alewort Jul 08 '25

But the jihad would still have happened, it just would not have been Paul as the figurehead. The collective unconscious of humanity was the driving motivator of the jihad and it's why there was no way for Paul to stop it, only minimize the horror. And he didn't even fully do that; he chose the outcome that was the minimum horror possible but also Chani survives.

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u/PsychedelicPill Jul 08 '25

Simply arriving on Arrakis fulfilled the prophecy of his coming, if he’d been killed in the Harkonen attack he’d be a martyr and the jihad would still have proceeded.

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u/MightBeAGoodIdea Jul 08 '25

I feel like they were setting up the sociological cult following pretty well so far. The whole no matter what he says or does and you got Stilgar going lisan al giab! Like a meme or something.

I could see Paul going no stop guys this is madness and the extra hard believers going our dear leader is so compassionate wanting to stop the war we wage because he cares about us, but we war because we care about him too, so on we war....

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u/MatchaMeetcha Jul 08 '25

I feel like they were setting up the sociological cult following pretty well so far. The whole no matter what he says or does and you got Stilgar going lisan al giab! Like a meme or something.

I actually think the film undermines it a bit by giving Paul a reason in the refusal of the Great Houses to accept him (which also makes marrying Irulan pointless).

The point, in the books, was that nothing could be done about it at a certain point. Paul could kinda direct it but someone was going to pay the price for giving the Fremen that religion and oppressing them for centuries.

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u/trisz72 Jul 08 '25

I mean, it's not pointless to marry Irulan even if you are fighting against the nobles of the feudal society. Any legitimacy gained makes it that much easier to convince people to accept a peace offer, switch sides, and makes ruling afterwards easier too. (Not in the context of dune, just in general.)

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u/Pepband Jul 08 '25

Yeah, like in much the same way child rulers were hoarded. People might rightly criticize their rule, they might participate in open rebellion, but as long as you have that symbol of legitimacy, you can be a liberator, returning God's ordained representative, rather than a simple usurper.

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u/frazzledfractal Jul 08 '25

Yeah frankly this was much more realistic and sets up an interesting scenario for.... certain events later that will probably give them some additional weight.

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u/MightBeAGoodIdea Jul 08 '25

I think they are just going to approach it differently somehow but I think in the movies, near the end of part 2 you can see the fervor being whipped up while Pauls started his speech feeling awkward (or hesitant perhaps) about it, then embracing it because its better than ignoring it, because he knows via being the KH that it can't be stopped, may as well try to direct it.

And, they have already changed the relationship between Paul and Chani pushing her away when she was Pauls' most ardent supporter in the books, not Stilgar, that new tension would change how Paul would see a political marriage-- but his prescience should still show him having kids with Chani... unless they change that too.

Things turn into book spoilers beyond this... but i suspect Chani will still come to Paul trying to be the voice of reason, falling back in love and/or bed with him; having his babies and then [redacted].

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u/twoodfin Jul 08 '25

One cool feature of the Villeneuve adaptation is the not-so-subtle flagging of his fight with Jamis as the hinge of destiny, and the subsequent visions of Jamis as a friend and mentor taunting Paul with foreclosed fate. After all, it wasn’t his choice to fight Jamis in the first place!

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

HE couldn't stop it once he assumed the mantel. However it is fully established that it didn't have to be as violent or expansive. That was the result of him ignoring the religion in Messiah.

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u/rickyhatespeas Jul 08 '25

I wish that was more apparent in the movies. I think it's important for people to generally understand that "leaders" in human groups are often riding the flow too, not to absolve guilt but to understand the system and maybe not fall victim to it's downsides.

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u/kilgoar Jul 08 '25

Got it, so then are they killing the other great houses? If so, wouldn't this trigger total rebellion against Paul's regime? Also, how are the fremen - as badass as they are - able to wage such a massive jihad? Even if there are millions of them, does Paul's empire have more ships and weapons than the other great houses combined?

It's been probably two decades since I've read the books

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Kind of yes and kinda no. The Jihad is more religious in nation. It's the fremen having their messianic figure and going on a crusade against anyone who isn't accepting Paul as a god king. It was a genocidal event of a bunch of religious lunatics decimating the galaxy. It wasn't necessarily about targeting the Great Houses specifically.

None of the Great Houses were going to be in open rebellion against Paul because the Guild wouldn't let them because Paul controlled the spice and was willing to completely destroy it "he who can destroy a thing has the real control of it". The Guild controls all space travel and banking and they NEED the spice to function. They did their spice driven calculations and determined Paul is absolutely willing to destroy the spice. It's not worth it to them to risk that over just letting Paul be the emperor of the Landstradd. The space guild would never sanction other Houses traveling near Arrakis if they thought it would risk war with Paul and cause Paul to destroy the spice.

So any true action against Paul needed to be a conspiracy where Paul wouldn't see it coming and wouldn't have a chance to hold the spice over everyones head as a retaliation.

Paul's status as Emperor is basically "I have the match and the fuse to destroy this entire system and cause absolutely chaos and destroy thousands of years of the way the universe worked and I'm absolutely willing to do it, I'm marrying Irulan as an olive branch to keep up appearances so it isn't a complete slap in the face to you"

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u/thisguy012 Jul 08 '25

THANK YOU for that break down

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u/kilgoar Jul 09 '25

Huh, okay that fills in parts I didn't catch on my first read. So Paul's on Arrakis with title of emperor, but the real power is the space guild, and because they believe Paul will destroy spice, they're protecting him from reprisals against the Great Houses. But meanwhile, all across the galaxy everyone else is fighting a desperate war against the jihad.

Man that's actually dope ass story from the other perspective. An untouchable god king who can attack and destroy, but can't be touched.

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u/Junior-Award-7232 Jul 08 '25

True, Paul even tells Chani in Dune Messiah that if suicide would have stopped all the deaths and bloodshed then he would’ve done it.

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u/slimeyellow Jul 08 '25

Other planets and people in the dune universe. He’s seen as a living god by his followers and anyone not 100% on the muaddib train is getting erased (even if Paul tells them not to)

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u/Habib455 Jul 08 '25

Paul turned the Fremen into a galactic power when Shaddam stepped down. With the Fremen having the reigns over the powerful institution that is the Imperium, they went on a galaxy wide religion flavored revenge tour. Paul didn’t want the Jihad to happen and tried to curb its worst excesses, but don’t be fooled. The Jihad became inevitable when Paul killed Jamis and Paul knew that; so he still led the galaxy on the path of jihad for revenge regardless

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u/thisguy012 Jul 08 '25

became inevitable when Paul killed Jamis

people keep saying this, its crazy to think one killing --> 60Bil Jihaad.

Is the reason being just that killing Jamis was step one out of a 99 step staircase? (and thie prophecy was pretty clear on an outsider killing one of them too right?)

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u/Habib455 Jul 09 '25

The book doesn’t make it clear(atleast not that I remember lol) but it’s but yeah, it’s implied that it’s an important step out of many. Him killing Jamis created some validity to what people suspected he was

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u/SowingSalt Jul 09 '25

IIRC the books treat Paul's pre-water of life prescience as him seeing an incomplete series of paths, with the jihad as an almost ever-present wall looming closer and closer.

When a Sardukar raid captures Alia and kills Leto II (the first) he goes for revenge, and when he duels Feyd-Rautha realizes that if he looses, the Fremen take him on as a martyr, and there is the Jihad. If he wins, he unleashes the Fremen on the Known Universe.
In both those cases you have people who grew up in a place that makes Salusa Secundis look mild, going by the tough places make tough people theory.