Movie: Dune (2021) Spoiler Alert

 Dune

Came out; 2021

Time; 2 hours 35 minutes

Watched: HBO Max

Rating; PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material

IMDB Rating; 8/10

Caution; Spoiler Alert

Staring.

Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides

Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides

Zendaya as Chani

Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides

Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho

Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck

Javier Bardem as Stilgar

Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet Kynes

Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh

Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban Harkonnen

Story Line.

A mythic and emotionally charged hero's journey, "Dune" tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive

Thoughts.

My daughter wanted to watch this, so we did. I had a hard time keeping track of what the hell was going on.

The movie was long, and I got the just of the storyline but so much could have been removed to still make it a good movie!

Zendaya is only shown in flashes until the end so it's odd that she is on the list of main characters.

The scenery was amazing, and the look of the planet was awesome, but this just wasn't a movie I would watch again

CAUTION; Major Spoiler Alert

The story opens with a woman telling a portion of her people's history on the desert planet, Arrakis. The woman, Chani, is a Fremen. She explains that since before she was born the planet has been ruled by the cruel Harkonnens who have grown enormously rich harvesting the psychogenic substance "melange" also known as the spice. The Fremen have been trying to expel the Harkonnens, but to no avail. Recently, however, the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV has ordered the Harkonnens to leave Arrakis. Chani wonders who the new rulers will be.

On the planet Caladan, Paul Atreides eats breakfast with his mother, Lady Jessica, Duke Leto's concubine. A member of the quasi-religious order of the Bene Gesserit, Jessica has been trying to teach her son the special powers of her order. She tests Paul by having him try to compel her to pass him a glass of water. Paul is only partially successful. Paul learns about the planet Arrakis and its people. It is the only source of the psychoactive spice, which extends life and perception. Spice is necessary for interstellar travel since it makes possible the expanded consciousness of the navigators who plot faster than light jumps, "folding" space time to travel instantly from one planet to another.

Leto Atreides, along with soldier Gurney Halleck and mentat Thufir Hawat, receive an imperial envoy who formalizes the awarding of Arrakis to House Atreides. The emperor fears Leto's growing political power and popularity in the Landsraad, a conclave of noble houses. Leto recognizes that his appointment to oversee Arrakis is a trap of some kind, but cannot refuse an imperial offer. Paul asks his friend, the elite soldier Duncan Idaho to take him along when Duncan goes to Arrakis weeks ahead of time to scout things out. Duncan refuses. Paul confides that he's been having dreams about Arrakis and the Fremen, including one where Duncan falls in battle. Duncan dismisses this as merely a dream, telling Paul that "Everything important happens when we're awake".

Paul discusses his wish to travel to Arrakis early with his father, but Leto refuses, saying that he needs Paul by his side. He explains the political situation: the emperor has set up a conflict between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a war which will weaken them both, to the benefit of the Emperor. Leto instead intends to strike an alliance with the Fremen in order to harness their "desert power" to his own and outwit the Emperor. Paul expresses his doubts about his ability to succeed his father as a leader. Leto confides his own doubts when he was young and insists that Paul will find his way to leadership, just as he did.

Gurney has a sparring session with Paul, insisting that the young ducal heir must be more wary about the danger posed by the Harkonnens and more ruthless in battle. Paul begins to have dreams of Chani. Jessica's Bene Gesserit superior, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam arrives on Caladan to test Paul. Before the meeting he is inspected by Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, who warns Paul that the Bene Gesserit have their own agenda. Mohiam puts Paul through the test of the Gom Jabbar, using a poisoned needle and a pain-inflicting box to judge his character. After the test, Mohiam asks Paul about his dreams and whether they sometimes come true. Afterward, Mohiam berates Jessica for producing a son for Duke Leto, rather than the daughters she had been ordered to produce.

She accuses Jessica of thinking that her son might be the Kwisatz Haderach, the fulfillment of a Bene Gesserit messianic prophecy. Jessica confirms this belief and Mohiam warns her that Paul's abilities are not fully developed and that he might die in the coming trials. When Mohiam leaves, Paul confronts his mother about what Mohiam meant. Jessica explains that the Bene Gesserit have spent hundreds of years engaged in a selective breeding program to produce an unparalleled mind who can see both the past and the future.

The Atreides arrive on Arrakis. When they disembark their ship, locals begin chanting a phrase Paul cannot recognize. Paul asks his mother and she explains that it's a local prophecy of the Lisan-al-Gaib, the "voice from outer world", a prophesied messiah on Arrakis. Jessica says that they think Paul might be this figure, but Paul dismisses it as mere superstition spread by the Bene Gesserit. Jessica hires a Fremen servant, Shadout Mapes. Mapes sees Jessica and Paul as a fulfillment of the Lisan-al-Gaib and gives Jessica a dagger made from the tooth of Shai-halud, the immense sandworms which make the desert of Arrakis so dangerous. That night, while he studies a holographic image of the muad'Dib desert mouse, Paul survives an assassination attempt by a hunter seeker drone when Mapes enters the room, distracting it.

Leto surveys his new domain and discovers that the Harkonnens have sabotaged much of the needed infrastructure. They decide to take the issue to the imperial arbiter of the transition, an ecologist named Liet Kynes, who has resided on Arrakis for years. Duncan Idaho returns from several weeks living with the Fremen. He reports to the Duke that the Fremen are unparalleled fighters who live in communities known as "sietchs" in caverns beneath the desert. Duncan confirms Thufir Hawat's belief that there are many more Fremen than previously believed. The leader of one of these sietchs, Stilgar, has come to meet with Leto. Stilgar demands that the outworlders not travel beyond the city except to mine spice. Leto refuses but insists that the sietchs will remain inviolate and that Fremen will not be hunted while the Atreides rule. Paul invites Stilgar to stay, but he leaves. Duncan introduces the Atreides to some Fremen technology, including the moisture saving stillsuits and thumpers which are used to attract sandworms.

Leto's party meets with Liet Kynes to investigate the spice mining operations. She inspects their stillsuits and finds that Paul has intuitively fitted his stillsuit in the Fremen manner. In the native language she says "He shall know your ways as if born to them". The party flies out to observe a spice mining operation. The mining vehicle -- a "sandcrawler" -- has attracted a worm, which is drawn by the rhythmic vibrations of the crawler as it collects the spice. When a flying carry-all fails to remove the mining vehicle, Duke Leto lands his small squad of ornithopters nearby to rescue the miners. When Paul gets out to guide the miners inside, he is hit with a massive dose of spice and has a series of visions including one of himself with Chani. He is nearly sucked down into the sand with the crawler when Gurney grabs him and hauls him aboard his father's ornithopter. The two watch as the worm's enormous, toothed maw opens and swallows the sandcrawler whole. Later, Paul is examined by Dr Yueh who informs Paul and his mother that the spice is psychoactive but shouldn't harm Paul.

Duke Leto awakes at night with the sense that something is wrong. He calls security but gets no answer. He finds Mapes stabbed to death and is shot with a paralytic dart that burrows its way through his body shield and into his back, paralyzing him. Yueh reveals himself as a traitor. He has lowered the shields and cut off Atreides communications. Gurney is awakened and leads the counter attack as the Harkonnen forces, aided by the imperial Sardukar troops, begin their assault. The Atreides troops, caught unprepared and outnumbered by Harkonnen troops and the Sardukar, find themselves quickly overwhelmed. Duncan kills several Sardukar, takes an ornithopter and tries to rescue Paul and Jessica but finds them already gone.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen has promised the Bene Gesserit that he will not harm Paul or Jessica so he sends some of his men to take them and leave them in the desert to die of exposure. Paul, not fully secure in his Bene Gesserit abilities, is still able to use the Voice to order one of the men to remove his mother's gag. Jessica immediately orders one of the men to kill his comrade. When she's fully freed, she kills two of them personally. Their ornithopter crashes and Paul and Jessica see the devastation of Arrakeen from a distance.

Yueh reveals to Leto that the Harkonnens secured his compliance because they have his wife held captive. He replaces one of Duke Leto's teeth with a poison capsule which he hopes the Duke will use to kill the Baron. Yueh meets with Baron Harkonnen and demands that the Baron honor his end of the deal. The Baron promises that Yueh will be reunited with his wife and then slits his throat. The Baron then gloats over a paralyzed Leto, who bites down on his fake tooth and expels the poison, killing everyone in the room except for the Baron who is gravely injured. Medical technicians nurse the Baron back to health.

Riding out a storm in a survival tent, Paul continues to have visions from his spice exposure. They are first of Chani. However, they quickly change to visions of bloody conflict and religious zealots, operating beneath and Atreides flag and under Duke Leto's name, spreading across the galaxy "like and unquenchable fire". Paul is horrified by what he sees and blames his mother and the Bene Gesserit but is eventually comforted by his mother.

Paul and Jessica are rescued by Duncan Idaho, who managed to escape the slaughter. Duncan brings them to Kynes, who has set up in an abandoned terraforming station occupied by Fremen. The Sardukar track them there and attack, with the Fremen killing many of them. Duncan sacrifices himself in a last stand to allow Paul, Jessica, and Kynes, to escape. Paul and Jessica flee in an ornithopter. Kynes sets up a thumper, intending to call a sandworm and ride it away, but she is mortally wounded by the Sardukar. Before they can deliver the killing blow, a sandworm arrives and Kynes attracts it to her by pounding a patch of drumsand.

While piloting the ornithopter through a powerful sand storm, Paul has a vision of a Fremen man giving him advice, telling him that survival in the desert is a process and that he must move with the flow of the environment. Paul retracts the 'thopter's wings and allows them to be carried deeper into the desert by the vortex of the storm. They survive the sandstorm but with the ornithopter damaged they must set out on foot through the desert. As they do, they are observed by Fremen.

Jessica and Paul make their way toward where they believe the Fremen sietch is. Their movements attract a sandworm and they make a run for some nearby rocks. The sandworm pauses, seemingly looking at Paul for few seconds before a thumper draws it away. A group of Fremen capture them. Stilgar is with them and recognizes Paul, saying that they can't touch him. Another Fremen, Jamis, dismisses Stilgar's belief and wants to kill Paul and Jessica and loot their bodies. Paul recognizes Jamis as the man from his visions.

Jessica asks for help returning to Caladan, saying that they will be well rewarded, but Stilgar dismisses any reward they'd give as pointless. Stilgar offers to allow Paul, who is still young, to join their sietch, but says that Jessica, who he deems too old to learn to fight, must be left behind. Jessica and Paul use their Bene Gesserit training to disarm most of the Fremen and hold Stilgar at knife point. Stilgar, realizing that Jessica is a Bene Gesserit, relents and decides to take both of them to the sietch. Jamis objects, and challenges Jessica to a duel.

Paul agrees to stand as Jessica's champion. Chani, who is part of the party, takes pity on Paul, who she believes will die at Jamis hand, and gives him her crysknife, a dagger made from the tooth of the sandworm, a moment from one of Paul's visions. In the duel, Paul outclasses Jamis, repeatedly holding a knife to his throat and demanding that he yield. Stilgar informs him that Fremen duels are to the death, and Jessica says that Paul has never killed anyone before. Reluctantly, Paul kills Jamis. Satisfied, the Fremen take Paul and Jessica back to their sietch.

Paul and Jessica see a Fremen impossibly riding a live worm. As they begin their journey into the desert, Chani tells Paul that "this is only the beginning".