History Film / Dune2021

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** The film omits any specifics about Gurney Halleck's ugly history with the Harkonnens and Rabban in particular, with Gurney only testifying that the Harkonnens are inhuman and brutal. The books gave Gurney the backstory that he'd once been a slave in GladiatorGames on Giedi Prime, and that Rabban scarred Gurney's face, giving Gurney a lifelong hatred for the brute.

** The omission of the warnings about TheMole gives this to House Atreides. In the novel, assorted members are warned no fewer than three times that there is a traitor in their midst, with some evidence planted to implicate Jessica might be the traitor. As a result, it becomes somewhat bothersome that no one suspects the actual traitor (though to be fair, the traitor was ruled out because [[spoiler:Dr. Yueh had undergone conditioning intended to make him IncorruptiblePurePureness]]). In the film, the Atreides miss the traitor simply because they have no reason to suspect one exists.

** The Navigator's Guild is only mentioned in passing and seen as few extras during the Change ceremony and Tufir noting their exorbitent price. Their exact roles as the third leg of the balance of power that the Empire depends upon for stability (to the point where the calendar uses the Guild's founding as its starting point) is left unmentioned. A lot of the details about the politics of the Empire are also absent. Similarly cut are the Fremen's own dealings with the Guild in secret and some of the more corporate aspect of the empire, depicting the empire as more feudal and medieval than its book counterpart. These omissions end up playing a major role in the sequel as it de-emphasizes the societal forces that make [[spoiler:Paul's eventual holy war]] inevitable and beyond his personal ability to stop. The films instead frame all that happens as the consequences of the characters involved and their personal choices.

** The Navigator's Guild is only mentioned in passing and seen as few extras during the Change ceremony and Tufir noting their exorbitent price. Their exact roles as the third leg of the balance of power that the Empire depends upon for stability (to the point where the calendar uses the Guild's founding as its starting point) is left unmentioned. A lot of the details about the politics of the Empire are also absent. Similarly cut are the Fremen's own dealings with the Guild in secret and some of the more corporate aspect of the empire, depicting the empire as more feudal and medieval than its book counterpart. These omittions end up playing a major role in the sequel as it de-emphasizes the societal forces that make [[spoiler:Paul's eventual holy war]] innevitable and beyond his personal ability to stop. The films instead frame all that happens as the consequences of the characters involved and their personal choices.

* ArmorIsUseless: PlayedWith. Personal shields are all but impervious to anything but slow-moving blades or specialized projectiles (at least theoretically, [[InformedAttribute not all the time onscreen]]) and have saved the life of at least [[spoiler:the Baron]]. However, if a shield does get penetrated it is usually treated as deathblow, which may be valid if the target wears nothing but his shirt under the shield, but harder to justify in the case of Atreides and Harkonnen soldiers wearing thick plates of armor, or the formidable-looking Sardaukar environmental suits.

->''[[Music/PinkFloyd ♫ And all you create\\
And all you destroy\\
And all that you do\\
And all that you say... ♫]]''

** The Harkonnens have a Finnish surname, and evoke the Nazis in a number of ways--they're pale-skinned, militaristic, dress in black uniforms, and at the movie's conclusion the Baron authorizes Rabban to enact a genocide of the Fremen. Their slaves, who are pale, bald and have solid dark eyes, resemble TheGreys; the Harkonnens' penchant for glossy black fabric and leather, and the strange gags that some of their servants wear, also suggest inspiration from [[BondageIsBad BDSM subcultures]], as a possible allusion to Baron Harkonnen's sadism in the book.

* AndIMustScream: The three guards [[spoiler:and Leto]] are totally awake but are paralyzed when Yueh disables the shields and sabotages the house to let the Harkonnens and Sardukar into the city. The guards can move their eyes, but not their bodies.

* OpeningScroll: The Sardukkar Priest throat-sings the the line at the start of the page and the translation is flashed on black before the opening logo.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: [[spoiler:This is the one of the key mistakes the Sardukar make at the Ecological Station. They manage to mortally wound Duncan, but they punch him to the ground rather than just finishing him off then and there. This oversight costs three more Sardukar their lives ''and'' their chance to get Paul and Jessica when the dying Duncan rallies to one last attack.]]

* StrangeSalute: House Atreides' battle salute consists of holding a blade vertically and touching the fist holding it to the heart, then rotating the blade horizontally and touching the flat of the blade to the forehead. This symbolizes that the heart and mind are a warrior's weapons as much as the blade. We see Duncan Idaho do it to Paul before his LastStand. It is also Paul's response to Jamis' Fremen PreAsskickingLine "My thy knife chip and shatter."

* YouShallNotPass: When the Harkonnens' troops march into the Arrakeen Palace, a thin blue line of Atreides soldiers blocks the entrance to the foyer. They are holding their own quite well against the Harkonnen ZergRush, until the Sardaukar appear behind them.

* ArmorIsUseless: PlayedWith. Personal shields are all but impervious to anything but slow-moving blades or specialized projectiles and have saved the life of at least [[spoiler:the Baron]]. However, if a shield does get penetrated it is usually treated as deathblow, which may be valid if the target wears nothing but his shirt under the shield, but harder to justify in the case of Atreides and Harkonnen soldiers wearing thick plates of armor, or the formidable-looking Sardaukar environmental suits.

* InstantDeathStab: During their DuelToTheDeath, Paul strikes [[spoiler:Jamis]] once with his crysknife, and the latter falls over and dies within half a minute.

** In the book, Thufir Hawat is Paul's Mentat teacher and has an extended subplot where he tries to suss out TheMole. Neither of these aspects are present in the film, with the result that all of his scenes occur during a 20-minute span. [[spoiler:His fate after the coup is unrevealed.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler:Gurney Halleck]] disappears after [[spoiler:the Harkonnen attack on Arrakis]], and [[spoiler:Thufir Hawat]] only appears before the film's halfway mark (due to this character's major SubPlot being AdaptedOut).

* AdaptationalContextChange: In the novel, the palm trees that lined the palace of a water-starved city were a sign of the Harkonnen reign, flaunting their water wealth to spite the native people. The movie describes them as sacred to the natives as representation of a dream for a better world,[[note]]the novel has a similar role with the palace having a climate controlled room full of greenery, which the Atreides spin as being held in trust for the people of Arrakis in anticipation of a terraformed planet[[/note]] and the trees are tragically burned during the Harkonnen attack.

* CharacterExaggeration: In the book, the Baron had the CharacterTic of rubbing his temple while thinking. In the film, he instead rubs his entire head, from neck to eyes.

** Dr. Yueh has a diamond-shaped tattoo on his forehead. In the book, this was a sign of his having graduated the Suk school of Imperial Conditioning, rendering it impossible for him to harm or betray anyone under his care as a physician. [[spoiler:Said conditioning has been broken by the Harkonnens, and Dr. Yueh is their mole.]]

%%* HangingOurClothesToDry: not related to water in the archetypal way, but same thing

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: well, face-masks in this case. A character in the original novel insisted that everyone wear their stillsuit masks, and going without would result in unnecessary loss of water; yet people are constantly seen out in the open with bare faces -- particularly Dr. Kynes, the character who did the insisting.
* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Paul and Dr. Yueh have a private conversation by speaking in Mandarin in Jessica's presence. Also the HandSignals noted above.

* InstantDeathStab: During their DuelToTheDeath, Paul strikes [[spoiler:Jamis]] once with his crysknife and the latter falls over and dies within half a minute.

* JabbaTableManners: Not exaggeratedly, but the Baron burps audibly and masticates noisily while at Leto's table (and eats with his hand, which might or might not be a custom in this setting).

* JustToyingWithThem: Stilgar asks Jessica if this is the case with Paul during his DuelToTheDeath with Jamis as Paul was repeatedly within death blow's chance. Jessica replies that he's never killed anyone before. [[spoiler:Paul finishes Jamis shortly thereafter - after another vision]].

* LectureAsExposition: Paul repeatedly listens to audio material and reads books about the Fremen which helps the audience to get to know them better.

* LighterAndSofter: Downplayed; while it still has plenty of grim moments and an ominous tone, this version is more accessible to those who have not read the book. It is not as dark, brooding, and nightmarish as the Lynch version. There is also a downplaying of gratuitous weird and bizarre elements in favor of focusing on the characters' personalities and relationships, with more warm-hearted interactions and bonding moments between the characters. Denis Villeneuve is much more of a sober filmmaker than David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky, both of whom are noted for their eccentricities.

* OneWomanWail: A significant part of the soundtrack, bordering almost on {{Leitmotif}}.

** The clash between the Atreides line and the Harkonnen ZergRush was deliberately modeled on ''"the iconic OdessaSteps sequence"'' from ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin''.

* StrangeSalute: House Atreides' battle salute consists of holding a blade vertically and touching the fist holding it to the heart, then rotating the blade horizontally and touching the flat of the blade to the forehead. This symbolizes that the heart and mind are a warrior's weapons as much as the blade.

* TitleDrop: Courtesy of Baron Harkonnen.
-->'''Baron:''' My desert. My Arrakis. ''My Dune.''

* WaifFu: The film doesn't bother pretending we won't notice Timothée Chalamet's slender frame, with Duncan playfully ribbing Paul about not putting on muscle. Also, his mother looks very classically feminine and delicate. But both are products of selective breeding and well-trained in advanced forms of close combat, [[spoiler:and easily trounce skilled and muscular warriors like Jamis and Stilgar, respectively]].

** The movie doesn't explain Mentats, despite being an important element to the world of ''Dune.'' While Thufir Hawat's calculation and ProphetEyes imply he's not a regular human (the viewer might assume he is a cyborg, given he has one such implant in the neck), one would have to read the books to understand that Hawat and the Baron's underling Piter de Vries are actually human computers.

** The Baron also activates his own shield while approaching Leto, something he neglected to do in the book. [[spoiler:His usage of it is more effective as it helps him survive the poison gas.]]

** As is usual in adaptations, the Bene Gesserit and the Harkonnen are given unflattering attires and hairstyles that make them only creepily stylish at the best. Harkonnen men are all shaven bald and deadly pale, while Reverend Mother Mohiam wears a spider-shaped headdress with a chain veil.

** The Voice itself. In the novels, it is supposed to sound like regular human talk, but in the film it is portrayed with sound effects that make it sound like a warped, demonic growl.

** The Gurney from the books was a WarriorPoet that had always a famous quote or a song to recite completely by heart. In the film, he does say a couple of quotes, but one of them sounds like an everyday idiom, while the other is a Biblical line said immediately after being seen reading the Orange Catholic Bible, implying this version of him doesn't have such a good memory for those things.

** For some unexplained reason, Dr. Yueh doesn't leave Jessica and Paul stillsuits, the most needed equipment to survive in Arrakis. He does leave a desert tent and an Atreides homing beacon, though.

** The Baron himself is made much less unappealing, as he looks substantially lighter than his explicitly 400-pound novel version, and it additionally seems a lot of his weight here comes from being a very wide and built person, with real muscle under all the fat, rather than it being sheer obesity. Creator/StellanSkarsgard's aristocratic features, still visible under all the makeup, also make him much better-looking than his bloated description from the book.

* AccentsArentHereditary: Baron Harkonnen has Stellan Skarsgard's natural Swedish accent, which is not shared by anyone else in his House. Despite the TranslationConvention in effect in the movie, [[FridgeBrilliance this is justified to a degree in-universe]] given that Rabban is not from the same planet as the Baron (being born on Lankiveil, whereas the Baron is from Giedi Prime) and lived on Arrakis for many years, all of which would justify his having a different accent to the Baron.

** Gurney Halleck, described in the books as an "ugly lump of a man", is played by the ruggedly handsome Josh Brolin (although hair and makeup do shift the emphasis to "rugged" over "handsome").