I Found Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ Script. ‘Dune: Part Two’ Is Better

As with the e book, the script begins with the gom jabbar scene between Paul Atreides and Reverend Mother Mohiam, besides on this model the Atreides have already made their trek from Caladan to Arrakis. Right after Paul passes his take a look at with the field, the 4 smart males of Thufir, Yueh, Gurney, and Duncan current Duke Leto with a wounded Fremen and three others assassinated by the Harkonnens.

HAWAT

Assassins! They trapped three of those poor fellows over there past the cliffs.

HALLECK

There was a worm. We needed to run for it.

You can see the issue: Right off the bat, Herbert is utilizing dialog to debate motion scenes that might be much better to see than to listen to about. He’s additionally introducing ideas left and proper (the Bene Gesserit order, the Kwizatz Haderach, sandworms, Fremen, Harkonnens) with out giving any context to them.

As in Lynch’s movie (and the e book itself), we get these pretty inner-thought voiceovers. Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac in Part One) thinks to himself, “We’ve been on this damned planet only two days and already the Harkonnens are at work!” Often these VOs include psychic conversations between two characters, a method Villeneuve makes use of a number of instances in Part Two, as between Feyd (Austin Butler) and Lady Fenring (Léa Seydoux).

The stage-play-esque stretches of barefaced expository dialog proceed unabated when Herbert’s script introduces the world of the hedonist Harkonnens, who covet a globe of Arrakis made out of jewels of their Guild Ship embellished with pornographic work. Introducing a personality not in Villeneuve’s movie, they’re proven torturing Wanna with an “agony box” as Feyd primarily videotapes it for Wanna’s husband, Doctor Yueh, so he’ll do their bidding towards House Atreides. She calls them “monsters,” with the Baron articulating, “Of course we are, my dear Wanna. We will do anything to regain our planet and its precious spice … We must rule Dune and the spice. We all need the spice. It lengthens our lives and you Bene Gesserit witches need the spice for your dreams.” Not fairly Paddy Chayefsky.

Stilgar arrives at Leto’s Great Hall with an entire contingent (together with Mapes, Kynes, and Chani) to extract the water from the lifeless Fremen utilizing a deathstill. Paul tells his mom, Jessica, that he acknowledges Chani from his goals, prophesying that she is going to bind him to the Fremen. Stilgar items his folks’s water to Paul, whom he immediately acknowledges because the Mahdi (the messiah of legend, although it’s by no means defined past that he could also be “the Shortening of the Way”). Duncan joins the Fremen as an olive department, and Mapes joins the Atreides as a home servant. On her approach out of the corridor, Chani provides a kind of backward glances to Paul that Zendaya does so continuously within the new motion pictures.

After Wanna unexpectedly dies throughout torture, the Baron plans to make use of Yueh to kill Paul with a hunter seeker whereas preserving Yueh’s spouse in a “crystallis” (a crystal case). Count Fenring (who will lead the Emperor’s Sardaukar to assault the Atreides disguised in Harkonnen uniforms) arrives on the Guild Ship. Disgusted by Harkonnens and appearing solely within the Emperor’s curiosity, he takes the recording of Wanna’s torture at hand off to Yueh.

On Arrakis, the Duke’s remaining troopers and baggage (together with atomics) are delivered, with Gurney taking part in accompaniment on his Baliset. Herbert was reportedly insistent that the taking part in of this instrument seem within the movie, one thing which was filmed however lower from Lynch’s movie and Villeneuve’s first Dune, however which lastly seems in Part Two. Herbert then contains the scene the place Duke Leto rescues the carryall crew from the worm, nearly beat-for-beat like Lynch’s, although Villeneuve gave the scene extra juice by having Paul be almost killed. One nice second acknowledges the injustice served to the Fremen as two of them (guides) attempt to board Leto’s ornithopter:

KYNES (VO)

We haven’t any room for them.

PAUL (VO)

There’s a capsule historical past of the Fremen!

We get a cool scene of Duncan preventing actually back-to-back with Stilgar towards a squad of Harkonnen amid the dunes. Stilgar chastises Duncan for utilizing his defend (it attracts the worm), then they seize a Harkonnen who warns them there’s a traitor of their midst. The scene the place Mapes cuts herself to indicate fealty to Jessica is there, as is the scene of Paul and Gurney practice-fighting (though sans shields) and the hunter seeker’s assault on Paul.

Because Herbert can not let a lot go, we get the banquet scene that has been ignored of each theatrical variations of Dune as a result of the political machinations it displays usually are not important to the plot (Leto goes to die quickly anyway). The banquet winds up consuming up almost 25 pages of the script earlier than it’s interrupted by Count Fenring’s assault on the Atreides fortress with assistance from Yueh decreasing the shields.

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