I just watched it and I absolutely detested it. The pacing was terrible, the romance subplot was lacklustre, and many of the scenes were incoherent. So much of it was just flimsy stringing to get to iconic key scenes. Visually, sure, they were striking. But it was all dressing without substance.
The portrayal of Paul and Jessica integrating into Fremen society is very half-assed. The Fremen also didn't really have their culture on display, only the 'cool' parts like sandwalking, moisture harvesting, their reservoir and the worms. Otherwise all you get is that within a sietch, they have some kind of council with a wisewoman, they're very religious. But what about the fact that despite appearing superficially like barbaric nomads, they are supposed to have advanced manufacturing capabilities? What happened to the aspects of daily life like the coffee service, Paul's inheritance from Jamis, or any of the duties of civil life that are laid upon him? It's a very one-dimensional portrayal of the Fremen when they have so much to draw upon. Very wasted. And remember the crysknife? The writers sure didn't.
The addition of the secular kids and the fundamentalists subhook was not only silly and incongruously 21st century Western thinking, it added nothing to the plot. The kids went from pooh-poohing the religious group, to just joining in with Paul without any proper development of how he courted them. All he said was "I'm here to fight with you, not rule over you." Not to mention, it's quite unthinkable in a society like that to so openly defy the elders and reject religion. Given how deadly Arrakis is supposed to be, the old ways ought to be sacrosanct, because tradition is practical survival. Given how religious the Fremen are supposed to be, they wouldn't just let the kids get away with it either. And how would the kids know anything about the Missionaria Protectiva? It's disconcertingly modern.
Chani's actress made her character awful. She had two faces for 95% of the film: pissed and sulky. But the entire direction they took for Chani's character was meaningless anyway.
Jessica had a lot of silly moments. Every time she used the Voice, it felt like she could have just said a few more regular words and she'd have a good convincing explanation. It's not like she was just making shit up. I appreciate her scheminess, but they should have focused more on her descent into buying her own manipulation.
The revelation of Jessica having Harkonnen blood was also thoroughly muted. They lost the subplot of her being accused of treachery, and just made Paul a bit mad at it. There's no impact, no real weight of the history of the Atreides/Harkonnen blood feud, no severe crisis of identity that Paul ought to face.
Paul's visions... why did they feel the need to portray it as millions starving to death from famine? That one just felt odd because they could have said millions will die from my war. Famine is way too specific when we're talking about murderous soldiers in a holy war. Also it's a shame they didn't use the imagery from the books of Paul standing on a dune, seeing ahead but with his vision blocked by ridges and dunes, making the future uncertain. They also didn't have his vision of Feyd killing him in many of the futures. Nothing about the Golden Path and the pain that Paul feels of knowing what he must do, yet being too scared to do it. So much screentime wasted to spend time on a shitty romance plot.
Then we had small sandworms instead of sandtrout, and they wrote out the implications there of the sandworm warping the entire planet's ecosystem around itself. Poor Kynes had no real reason to exist, they never even made mention of him/her ever again. So the grand irony of the Fremen dream killing the sandworms is lost.
Alia being an abomination was literally undiscussed, they just had the old crone go "fuck, what have we done, she was pregnant" when Jessica underwent the spice death. And that was that, Alia's special state of being is never touched upon ever again. Again a waste, and also since Alia isn't born in this movie, we lose out on her entire beginning with the Fremen as a terrible child, how people shunned her, etc.
At least Stilgar was having fun.
Poor Rabban got done dirty. He didn't even get to be called Beast. For a guy who's supposed to be feared - or at least, fearsome - he just comes off as a joke. Man really had a whole scene to fly out there, land, advance and retreat.
Feyd-Rautha comes swooping in and how does he tighten the grip on the Fremen? He just flies a fleet over and blows the sietch sky-high. And supposedly he struck all the northern sietches at the same time. So you're telling me that they knew all along where the Fremen were hiding, but Rabban just didn't do anything about it? Feyd just goes and blows up the rock face, and the Fremen never expected this? Come on. And then the Baron has the whole "omg he used artillery" moment, which is dumb and out of place.
And they bothered to include the black/white sword in Feyd's gladiator scene, but completely discarded its narrative use, which was to show how cunning/treacherous Feyd was AND the use in the final duel with Paul to show off how Paul has full control over his biochemistry, ie, showing off how he has truly become the creature his mother wanted him to be. The swords ended up being visual fanservice that had no bearing on the actual plot.
The Baron... eh, he was okay. It was fun that the Harkonnens were basically portrayed as drukhari. But Alia not being the one to kill him means that if they do a third film, Alia's inner war with the Baron loses a lot of impact.
Shaddam had an ass portrayal. For such a schemey bastard, did he really need Irulan to explain what martyrdom was? It's not even made clear why he thought it necessary to go to Arrakis himself.
The Sardaukar jobbed so hard, it was tragically comedic. The entire final battle was daft actually. The part where Chani and her Fremen soldiers burst out of the sand and start charging was ridiculous. How could they have been hiding there already when we just saw them making war plans? What is this, a tabletop deep strike? The Sardaukar felt less menacing than the regular Harkonnen mooks, which is embarrassing. That final part where the Sardaukar in the throne room advance into the smoke, vanish and the Fremen come out 2 seconds later was pure comedy.
There's so much to bitch about, fuck me. I really don't see how this deserves the praise it's getting.
