Denis Villeneuve embarks on his most challenging adventure to date: completing the Dune trilogy with an adaptation of Dune Messiah. This is not the only project he has in progress, as he will also direct an adaptation of Nuclear War: A Scenario, and he has two more developments underway: a new biopic of Cleopatra and an adaptation of Rendezvous with Rama.
However, Dune: Messiah is the first work on his list. After the great success that Dune: Part II has had, the director wants to complete Paul Atreides’ story properly. That is, just as Frank Herbert, the original writer, wanted it. People want to see how his story ends after ascending to power, so Villeneuve plans to tell it.
Dune: Messiah is the second book in the saga after the original novel, and it is known that Frank Herbert wrote it, in part, to make up for those who saw Paul Atreides’ journey as the typical hero’s journey. The protagonist of his novel is not a hero, he argued, and that’s why he concluded his story with a much less accommodating second part, both for him and for the story. There are no good or bad guys here: everything is gray. But this may cause this adaptation to not work as well as the previous ones.
A much more complex adaptation than the original
Although the second part of Dune already made it quite clear that Paul Atreides is not the saint we all thought he was, especially with the machinations of his mother and the snubs of the protagonist himself to Chani when he begins to have power, it was clear that the story was not completely finished. Yes, Atreides had become the new Emperor of the Galaxy, and it was clear that he was not the good guy we thought he was… but is that it? Is this really how the story ends?
Obviously, Dune was missing a conclusion that Herbert already provided at the time. Villeneuve and Legendary Pictures also consider this, as soon as they saw the box office numbers for the second part, they rushed to announce the third. But is Dune: Messiah as adaptable to the cinema as the first novel was? The truth is, no, and let me explain.
Although Dune was misunderstood at the time because many treated Paul Atreides as a hero, the truth is that structurally it functioned like classic novels, or even like Hamlet. There is not much difference between The Lion King and Dune, and although they had to split it into two parts here due to the complexity of its story, the truth is that it is a story that has the perfect structure to work in cinemas.
Dune: Messiah, however, is very different. It is a novel full of political intrigues where betrayal and wars between families and planets are the order of the day. Without giving away spoilers, basically it is a novel that revolves around a Paul Atreides obsessed with his visions of the future while everyone around him tries to manage a completely unstable empire.
From allies betraying their leader to entire families joining forces against the Atreides, coupled with much more intricate religious plots, it is clear that this is a novel full of possibilities for an adaptation. However, there are not as many battles or as much action as in the previous ones. In fact, its narrative is much more based on dialogue and pure politics, so it may be very different from what fans of the other two Dune movies expect.
To give us an idea, Dune: Messiah is much closer to Game of Thrones than to The Lord of the Rings. Or to the Star Wars prequels than to the original films. Is that a bad thing? Far from it. In fact, many believe that Dune: Messiah is a much better novel than the original. However, it may not have that cinematic classicism that characterizes the previous ones… and if we take into account that Villeneuve is not particularly a fan of dialogues, he will have to adapt the book a lot to make it his own.
Regardless, after the two big hits that have been brought to the big screen, the confidence in the director cannot be greater. It is clear that Dune: Messiah is going to be a good movie, the only question is whether it will resonate with the audience as much as the previous ones have.
