Dune Messiah: A Review and What to Expect for Denis Villeneuve's next film
Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.
Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan
Was Dune Messiah a disappointment?
Upon completion of the book, I jotted down some notes on my phone. The first word I typed was “dissatisfied”. Frank Herbert failed to meet several expectations established in the first novel. The most damaging was a lack of action. The plot meandered, never getting out of second-gear, without climaxes to signal an end to an act or part of the story.
Even so, parts were intensely beautiful. I was left with the sorrowful thoughts of Paul, as he strolled the dusty streets of Arrakeen. As his thoughts turned from his love for Chani and the desire for a male heir to his dream of escaping the predetermination of the horror he began all those years ago, I could sense the folly, the fear, the brutal sadness of his situation.
Despite the book’s flaws, it is a necessary companion to Dune. Without it, the story of Paul is unfinished. In many ways, this novel is an epilogue emphasising the tragedy of Paul and the role we all play in it.
Below, I’ll discuss how Herbert failed to meet expectations and his wonderful rendering of Paul’s tragedy. I’ll end the review with how Denis Villeneuve might bring Dune Messiah to the cinema.
Failing to Meet Expectations
Often expectations in art are framed as either meeting or subverting a trope typical of a specific genre. However, expectations can simply lead from what an artist has done before. A common example is when a musician either meets or subverts fan expectations based on their past singles and albums. Yet, more powerful than simply the expectations created by previous work in general, is the expectations created by a work that is supposed to be an antecedent to later works, like the first book or film in a trilogy.
Dune, the first novel in the Dune Trilogy, sets up several expectations that in are not met in Dune Messiah. The two lesser ‘failings’ were 1), a lack of geographic ‘movement’ (in the first novel Paul travels from Caladan to Arrakis, and then all over the desert, whereas in Dune Messiah, the almost the entire novel takes place within the imperial palace), and 2), a lack of character development outside Paul (in the first novel, despite Paul being the protagonist, many characters get ‘page-time’). However, the most important was a lack of action.
Beside from a dramatic scene were an atomic weapon called a stone burner is used by conspirators to assassinate Paul, barely missing him and burning his eyes out of their sockets, and a final teleportation move by Paul to kill the central antagonist and save his new-born twins, there was no action at all. Despite having many characters who were capable of both stylish and brutal physical feats, entire armies of men that could go to war with each other, fascinating and destructive technology that can blow cites to pieces, Herbert took advantage of none of that, as he had done in Dune, leaving me frustrated.
In the first novel, the occasional bursts of action in between the brilliant political intriguing, were often used to convey character, like when Leto saved the men who were drilling for spice in the desert, and Feyd-Rautha’s epic introduction when he fought the three gladiators on Geidi Prime. Both these scenes were thrilling and we discovered type of individual behind the dialogue. Furthermore, he used action as a climax for a scene, or more importantly, a climax to signal the end or beginning of an act. When Leto bites down on the poison in his molar, blowing the gas onto Baron Harkonnen and killing himself, while Paul and his mother escape into the desert, this signals to the reader (or watcher - it’s similar in the film), the first act, the arrival on Arrakis, is over, and the second act, the exploration of Arrakis (and by effect, Paul’s character), has begun. Not for a minute did I get the sense that Herbert was writing action for action’s sake, which can come across as superficial and commercial.
In my view, the lack of action and therefore thoroughly not meeting one of the big drawcards of the first novel, was Herbert’s greatest failing. It limited the depth of his characters, and limited the drama typical of a more traditional story structure. If Herbert did this to be ‘artistic’, then ironically, his desire to be artistic made him produce worse art.
Paul’s Tragedy and Our Role In It
Herbert was quoting saying the trilogy was supposed to follow the emotional arc of a fugue, whereupon Dune Messiah, a meditative tragedy, is the emotional inversion of Dune, a “heroic melody”.
At the end of the first novel it was clear Paul was not like his father. He had greater lust for power, and may do the unethical to achieve it, manipulating the war-like Fremen into believing in his myth. Importantly, he did so despite being tortured by visions of a murderous jihad in the coming future. He was less willing to listen to the counsel around him, those men who kept the potential tyranny of the lone leader in check. All this, combined with the fact he was the Kwisatz Haderach, enhanced with the ability of foresight, meant that without maturity, wisdom, and benevolence, he was very dangerous indeed.
By the beginning of Dune Messiah, twelve years after the first novel, tens of billions have been slaughtered under the name of the Muad'dib. Herbert is incredibly clear, he does not want anyone to misunderstand that even the most talented leader can be corrupted by power:
[PAUL] “What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.”
[STILGAR] “Genghis . . . Khan? Was he of the Sardauker, m’Lord?”
[PAUL] “Oh, long before that. He killed . . . perhaps four million.”
[STILGAR] “He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or . . .”
[PAUL] “He didn’t kill them himself, Sil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing — a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.”
[STILGAR] “Killed . . . by his legions?”
[PAUL] “Yes.”
[STILGAR] “Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.”
By manipulating the way the reader feels toward Paul, wanting him to succeed in Dune, and then distancing oneself once his atrocities come to light in Messiah - but after it’s too late, Herbert emphasises that one not only need be wary of the charismatic charlatan, but of the populations he fools - in this case, the murderous Fremen and by effect, the reader - ourselves.
Herbert does this expertly: In the first novel, by using a protagonist who is not yet an adult and an oppressed population we can sympathise with, the reader far more easily suppresses the negative emotions that might be inspired by a manipulative and domineering rise to power. In the second novel, we are forced to confront the fact that this same protagonist and population have murdered Earth ten times over.
But the real brilliance of Messiah, is that Herbert never shows Paul himself doing an immoral act: In general, he plays the role of the benevolent and noble leader, he loves his wife Chani and is faithful to her, he cares for his erratic sister and tries to mentor her, and he longs for the safe birth of his children. The reader is still encouraged to identify with the human parts of Paul’s character and experience his sorrow. In my view, this combined with the accompanying beautiful imagery (it is so vivid in my mind), is strongest part of the novel.
Denis Villeneuve
In Dune: Part I and Part II, the films, though largely faithful to the Dune narrative, Denis Villeneuve did change a few things. After reading the Dune novel, I was critical of how he altered the character of Chani. (Here is a great review by
.)Villeneuve turned her from a likeable and capable warrior with deep feminine instincts, into a whining girl-boss who, in the last scene of Dune: Part II, leaves her beloved Fremen behind to fight alone against the Emperor’s forces because she perceived that she was rejected. In the novel, she understands the strategical move Paul needs to make, and though proud and hurt, accepts it as necessary.
Yet by doing this, Villeneuve makes Paul’s tragedy more clear to see than in the first novel. The rejection of Chani is not only a rejection of her, it is a rejection of the correct moral path. Throughout the film, Chani frequently raises concerns about Paul’s desire to avenge his father’s death and gain power, that in doing so may bring about the terrors of the jihad. Though I do believe this could have be done without making Chani unlikeable, I now realise after reading Dune Messiah, that it sets up the third film quite effectively.
Additionally, Villeneuve’s decision to not make three Dune films for the first novel, but two, shortening Paul’s exploration of the desert, makes far more sense when you consider the fact that Messiah is a necessary companion to Dune, that without it, the story of Paul is unfinished. Dune: Part II then, sets up the fall of Paul, his descent into tyranny: Dune Messiah.
Yet how is going to do this?
Messiah begins twelve years after the end of the Dune novel. It does not portray Paul’s descent at all, instead focussing on Paul’s depression after he has become the evil he feared he may become. Is Villeneuve going to age the actors, age Timothée Chalamet and the rest of the cast? Or is he going to drastically change the narrative of Messiah, starting at an earlier time period? If his decision to include Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides, Paul’s sister, is anything to go by, it appears Villeneuve is at the very least going to stay faithful to the time jump: Alia Atreides is supposed to be sixteen in Messiah (though Anya Taylor-Joy as a teenager is a bit weird … so he may jump even further ahead.)
Whereas Villeneuve could not have made a better film than the first Dune novel, he could have only met its quality, with Messiah, he can actually improve upon it. I am almost certain Villeneuve will rectify the lack of action in Messiah - and that alone can turn it from average to good. Also, whatever one thinks of the plot or characterisation of the Dune films, they were visually gorgeous. The imagery in Dune Messiah is even more beautiful than the first novel, so this alone will justify seeing it in the cinema.
The final scene of Dune Messiah on the big screen could be incredible. The Fremen have a tradition where they send the blind out into the desert, alone, letting them be consumed and hopefully reborn in a later life. A nomadic and war-like people, they cannot justify carrying in their troop a man or woman that cannot see. Paul, after getting his eyes blown out by the stone-burner, becomes physically blind - but he can still ‘see’ due to his foresight. Yet, upon the birth of his children, and the killing of the central antagonist, Paul looses his foresight, becoming truly blind. Here, the tragedy is complete: He then follows Fremen tradition, walking off alone into the desert, his soul flattened but ready to be reborn by the very substance that sculptured his tyranny: The sand of the desert.
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The Delinquent Academic
Herbert is filled to the brim with astute observations of human nature and society condensed into brief quotables. It's impressive. I have heard the third one's an even more arduous march but that God emperor of Dune is on par with the first novel.