2 Dune 2 Messiah

On second volumes

Both SteelyKid and The Pip expressed interest in seeing Dune 2, so I booked us tickets for a (pretty much full) 11:30 am IMAX showing at one of the local malls. (And then, because I am a genius, promised SteelyKid a pre-movie lunch at a different local mall… Happily, they’re five minutes apart, but it could’ve been really bad…) It’s quite a cinematic spectacle—outstanding acting and direction, mind-blowing production design— and definitely worth talking about it.

In the run-up to the release of the movie, there’s also been a lot of #discourse about the series and whether people are properly understanding it, much of which has referenced the second book, Dune Messiah. So I picked up a copy of that and read it during the March Meeting. (A bit of a grad school throwback, being the solo guy in a restaurant with a beer and a paperback book…)

Having read this book and seen the movie in such close proximity to one another, it’s worth a bit of talk about how they interact. Which will unavoidably involve spoilers both for a recent hit film and a fifty-year-old book, so I’ll provide a little space here for the squeamish to bail out. If you want two take-aways from this, though, they are:

1. Frank Herbert was a really weird dude

2. People are idiots

That’s the TL;DR version, more details are below this spoiler space:

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So, taking these in the order in which I consumed them: Dune Messiah is a very strange book. The argument around it in the #discourse is that people slamming Dune as a White Savior tale are missing the point, because the second book shows that Paul’s ascension kicked off a holy war that killed billions, which is true. The war is almost completely in the background of this book, though (which explains why I didn’t remember that aspect all that clearly from when I read these in the early 1980’s). It opens with a “historical” prologue talking about how Muad’Dib’s war lasted twelve years, and then jumps into a meeting of villains where somebody says “This war has been going on for twelve years, when will it end?” The slaughter-of-billions stuff is mentioned, but primarily in the context of Paul and others feeling really bad about it; there’s a scene where he somewhat self-pityingly compares himself to Hitler and Genghis Khan, but that passes by pretty quickly.

The plot of the book then mostly consists of people moping around in palaces complaining that politics is hard and power has a cost through having incredibly portentous conversations with one another. Then there are a few chapters with action and genuine tension, and a very abrupt ending. It’s very strange.

This one is definitely trippier than the first book (as I noted when I re-read that, it’s striking how little drug content is in what’s often discussed as a very druggy book), with some more emphasis on prophetic visions and mystical bafflegab. There’s a lot of nattering on about ideas of politics that I don’t entirely follow I think because they’re not entirely coherent— a weird mix of “People are awful and can’t be trusted to rule themselves,” and “Tyranny is a terrible thing and shouldn’t be allowed.” And the writing continues to be very odd— the point-of-view of the story is generally a tight third person, but sometimes jumps between characters in the middle of a paragraph, which is really strange.

At the same time, it’s weirdly compelling stuff. And the bits at the end where actual plot happens are terrific— from the introduction of the dwarf to the end of the book it’s a real ride.

The second movie draws heavily on the themes of the second book without actually referencing anything from it. I don’t think Villeneuve could make it any more obvious that Paul’s ascension is a Bad Thing, as much as it’s also an awesome spectacle. Every significant step on his rise to power is scored like it’s a horror movie, and it’s not just because that’s What Movie Music Is Now. I’m not sure how people watch the ending of that and think the filmmakers want you to walk out going “Muad’Dib, fuck yeah!”

On the other other hand, though, I think it’s a mistake to say that the coming holy war completely fixes everything about the story’s politics. I think there’s a lot of truth to the comment by Sonny Bunch that as much as the conquest by the Fremen is sold as a Bad Thing, it’s also clear that their rivals are completely horrible people, so it’s hard not to root for the Atreides/Fremen hegemony.

And that, ultimately (as I said on ex-Twitter) is the whole point of the series: Paul’s ascension to the throne is terrible for everyone involved, but it’s also presented as the least bad option available. Both for him and his family and friends, and (in the prophetic bits of the books) for humanity as a whole. Everything is grim and tragic because there’s absolutely no possibility of a happy ending, for anyone in the story.

And I think that’s why the story is both compelling and politically kind of incoherent: it wants you to feel bad about characters choosing the least bad of a set of appalling options. It’s also what makes so much of the #discourse around it so frustratingly stupid: people yelling about it seem stuck on the notion that somebody on the creative side of the production must approve of the actions of the characters. Which is not the case at all, and is particularly frustrating to see from people who in other contexts will berate people for not using “critical thinking.”

I will also note that, as when I wrote about the first movie, I both enjoyed the discussion of it on The Big Picture podcast and at the same time was struck by how hilariously terrible the hosts are at picking up what’s going on, at least by the standards of SF fans. A number of points that seemed perfectly clear to me are discussed as if they’re completely baffling, and this is after they’ve seen it twice. Though I do share their confusion about the nature of human reproductive biology in the Dune Cinematic Universe (that said, it’s probably a wise choice for the film to avoid Alia the Prophetic Murder Toddler…).

When we walked out of the theater, SteelyKid announced “I think I want to try reading the books,” so I handed over my paper copies of both Dune and Dune Messiah. I’m not sure this will be followed up in any meaningful way— SteelyKid announces a lot of things that don’t come to pass— but I’m sort of curious to see whether the prose version works at all for a modern teen, or if it’s just too weird and dry without the cinematic mastery of Villeneuve and his production team.

And if Villeneuve actually carries through with his ambition to make a Dune Messiah movie, I’m really curious to see what that would be like, because the book is so weird and un-cinematic. I hope they give him the chance, because the two movies he’s already made are terrific and really elevate the material of the books.

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