Paul sees his and Chani's children. Yes, they're all grown up, all together at last. Moreover, his final vision is of dead bodies, swimming in a sea of blood, his hands covered in muck and filth. It's a horrible sight, but necessary to the narrative, in that untold destruction and mayhem must take place before the new order can secure a foothold.
In the director's commentary, much is made of the clash of accents, for example an Australian actor blended with his Czech Republic counterparts.
Getting back to the story itself, sabotage continues to be a major aspect of Paul and the Fremen's game plan: to thwart the many Harkonnen attempts at tyranny by tossing as many wrenches into the works as possible.
With that, Part Three of the Dune saga starts off with a literal bang because of it. Otheym (Jakob Schwarz), one of the newly anointed, loyal followers of Muad'Dib (i.e., Paul in messianic mode), is at the forefront of these clandestine raids. In attempting to flee, Otheym is stopped by one of the Sardaukar guards. To the rescue comes a young boy - as it turns out, the son of one of the Fremen captured and butchered by a revenge-filled Rabban in the previous portion.
The focus comes back to Paul, overseeing the operation from his mountain hideaway. His eyes are as blue as the unclouded sky. The Fremen tell him they can take the city of Arrakeen at any time. Just say the word and it will be done. However, Paul counters their arguments, saying "Not yet."
Two years have passed. And thanks to their guerrilla warfare tactics, the Fremen have succeeded in taking over areas once considered Harkonnen strongholds. Yet Paul remains overly cautious. He's starting to act indecisively - at least, that is what his Fremen followers perceive. So did us viewers.
Still, there are reasons for his hesitancy. One of them is that Paul cannot as yet see the future, though he longs to do so by way of ingesting more and more spice. Resultantly, he's become addicted to it, which breeds frustration among his minions who, let's face it, are themselves tired of waiting around. Natural-born fighters want, quite naturally, to fight, not play cat and mouse games with their foe as they have been doing.
Murder, He WroughtIn the next scene, we are back on Giedi Prime. The burly Baron has troubles of his own. In fact, he too has been the target of an assassination attempt, this time by his beloved nephew Feyd-Rautha. How did lover boy succeed in getting so close to his (you'll pardon the expression) "favorite uncle"? Through treachery, of course!
But the plot fails. Confronting Feyd with the dirty deed - he shows Feyd the poisoned dart implanted in the dead man's wrist - the Baron smacks his devious nephew's pretty visage, claiming that he's good material. Ergo, Feyd is much too valuable a commodity to be wasted on petty murder attempts.
Pained at his relative's obvious duplicity (one the Baron himself is more than capable of), he massages his temple in contemplation of what to do next. Feyd tries to come up with a reasonable explanation, a pretext of some kind, for the botched attempt. His best and only excuse is that it will be better for him, Feyd, to handle things than his maniacal older brother Rabban, a brute of unpredictable proportions. This greatly pleases the Baron, who brags of wanting to leave the wealth of Arrakis to his unworthy kin.
"What wealth?" the contemptuous Feyd-Rautha replies. To his feeble and self-serving mind, the place is a dung heap. Why, it's nothing but a sand trap. Besides Feyd's physical prowess as a killing machine, he's not the swiftest of plotters. Oh, he's leagues ahead of his brutish brother Rabban, especially in the ambition department, but nowhere near the Baron's crafty long-range planning.
Vengeance is Mine AloneIn a change of venue, we see young Alia, Paul's little sister, intruding on a Fremen woman giving birth. In the next instant, she complains to her mother, the Lady Jessica, how everyone avoids her. This hurts her feelings, poor thing. That is because they probably know (as viewers may or may not be aware, unless they have read the book) that she is a special child with unusual powers. Her story, such as it is, will be told in the sequel Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. For now, make note that both Alia and Jessica's eyes shine with the bluest of blue shades, more to give their increased intake of spice added emphasis.
Shifting the focus back to Maud'Dib, we see that Paul Atreides experiences a dream sequence. He sees the worms riding out onto the desert sands, which turn green with new growth, the moon shining brightly in the background.
This brings up a question: Why would our moon be there in the first place? Viewers may well wonder, as this writer no doubt has, what the real purpose of this shot is. And you thought the story took place in the far distant future! Well, perhaps you were mistaken. Is it possible this "space opera" epic, as it was being told and presented, in reality took place many millennia ago? That Arrakis is actually our little Earth? That all that racing about in ornithopters and folding space and such are representative of past events? This notion is well founded and within the realm of possibility.
Snapping out of his reverie, Paul resumes his role as Muad'Dib. His wife, Chani, attends to a dead Fremen, one that she herself has killed in order to prevent her husband's demise by assassination. Curiously, Paul turns away from the crime and puts his hand to his temple. His finger mimics the Baron Harkonnen's own rubbing of his noggin in mirror-like fashion. Hmm, how odd.
Nevertheless, it is time for Paul to ride the worm. He must do so in order to fulfill the prophecy of his being the anointed one, the expected Muad'Dib who will bring order to disorder, and bind the opposing forces together by taking ownership of the planet. In this and in subsequent events, Paul Atreides will be successful. But for how long can he continue the charade? Is he really endowed with powers beyond any mortal man? Or is it an act of supreme confidence? Of willful concentration, or mind over matter?
Meanwhile, Gurney Halleck (remember him?) has basically been on his own, dealing with a band of smugglers somewhere in the open desert. He, too, has employed hit-and-run tactics as a method for survival and slowly gaining acceptance from the locals. He's even absconded with an ornithopter. Not bad for a former bodyguard! To Gurney's surprise, a band of Fremen attack from under the sand. Again, there are more hit-and-run outlaws out there than you can shake a stick at (that is, if you can find one).
In this sequence, Gurney is about to carve a hole into the base of a captive Fremen's neck, when Paul steps in to announce his presence. The "Gurney man" embraces his former protégé, dubbed "young pup," that endearing phrase he once used to describe the late duke's heir. Otheym looks on in awe. Gurney's men combine with Paul's forces against the Sardaukar and Baron Harkonnen's vicious raiders.
Back at one of the many hidden caves, Gurney meets Chani and is impressed that Paul is married with a son of his own to care for. Paul asks about the former bodyguard's men, most of whom are smugglers and riffraff. "Good men," Gurney boasts, waiting to do their part. None, however, are Atreides loyalists. All were butchered by the Harkonnen. Others left Arrakis, thinking Paul had died. "Yet you stayed," Paul counters. "Only to await my vengeance," Gurney answers. Paul knew they would be reunited. "I saw it," he insists. "My father once spoke about desert power. You just met it. The surface of this planet is ours. No storm, no worm, not even the emperor's Sardaukar can stop us now."
Paul urges his ex-guardian to enlist with him, to feed on revenge with them. "Enlist?" Gurney asks. "I never left your service." Paul embraces him, warmly, his blue eyes firmly focused on Gurney.
We switch to the emperor tearing up another report of Paul's raids. He is thoroughly disgusted at this Muad'Dib's wanton pillaging of the spice trade. Writer-director John Harrison envisions the emperor not as a malevolent figure but as a tragic one, a once powerful ruler at the mercy of unfolding events. Events that have been spinning out of his control. "He's made a fatal mistake," Harrison tells us, by aligning himself with the merciless Baron Harkonnen who is a malign figure.
On the opposite side of this battle of wills, we have the lovely but highly pensive Princess Irulan, who knows all this and tries to steer her father in the direction of knowledge as to what might happen in the near future. She is "coy" and subtle in her insinuations, but "dear ole dad" does not hear what she has to say. Or perhaps he pretends not to listen. Either way, the emperor storms out of the room, leaving Minister Fenring to praise Irulan for her perceptive mind.
Before he leaves, however, Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV charges his minister with summoning the Baron to explain what plans he has to counter the rebel advance. In turn, the Princess confesses that she is most curious about this so-called Muad'Dib.
And with that, we transition again to an attack on Paul by a Sardaukar agent, an infiltrator if you will from among Gurney's band of smugglers. This time, Paul insists on taking the assassin alive. True, the revenge-seeking Gurney man is ready to run this fellow through with his crysknife. But Paul stops him in time, the idea being this assassin will be sent back to Rabban with a message that Muad'Dib is alive and kicking.
In the next sequence, Paul asks the Fremen to a council. They will gather up their forces for the final assault. When Gurney hears that Lady Jessica is still alive, he narrows his eyebrows and looks away, muttering wordlessly to himself. We know, from a prior encounter in Part One, that Gurney suspects the Lady of plotting to murder his beloved Duke Leto. Was he that convinced that Paul's mother, the late duke's concubine, would risk exposure of her alleged crime? Is he that blind to the obvious?
The answer lies somewhere in his and Jessica's backstories and some of what will be divulged in the later Children of Dune sequel.
Back on Planet Kaitain, the Princess is told of the legend of this Muad'Dib character. No one has ever seen this fellow, no one has gotten close to him. There are only rumors of his existence, bare hints of this mysterious desert dweller. Perhaps he's only a ghost, a figment of the Fremen's imagination. Princess Irulan is not convinced. "There are no such things as ghosts," she repeats to herself.
In the very next scene, Paul is taken to greet their newest captive, the creepy representative of the Spacing Guild. Without his pointy hat, he's as bald as a newborn babe - and lucky to be alive at that. While Paul is bathed in blue light, the Spacing Guild rep is shown in half-light/half-darkened shadows, signaling to viewers that he cannot be trusted. He's playing both the good and bad sides, sometimes pitting one against the other for personal gain or, most likely, survival.
Paul questions the representative as to whether the Spacing Guild is in league with the emperor and/or the Baron. Although the agent claims neutrality over their arguments, Paul thinks otherwise. The agent, however, repeats the words that are magic to Paul's ears: "The spice must flow." Indeed, it does. Paul nods in assent. He also spares the lives of the Spacing Guild agent and the surviving Sardaukar. Why is he being so magnanimous? What gives with that?
"Tell them your fight is hopeless," Paul intones. "Tell them the forces of Muad'Dib cannot be defeated. Tell them the days are numbered." Instead of relief, fear fills the face of the Spacing Guild agent. What will become of them if and when Muad'Dib takes charge?
"The saga of Dune is far from over..."
(To be continued...)
Copyright © 2022 by Josmar F. Lopes
