Film / Dune: Part Two

Spoilers for Dune: Part One are unmarked

Long live the fighters.

Power over Spice is power over all.

Dune: Part Two (stylized as ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ: Part Two) is a 2024 epic Space Opera Science Fiction film and the second part of the adaptation of Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 novel Dune by Denis Villeneuve after the 2021 film, produced by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. It is co-written by Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, and covers roughly the last third of the novel with elements of the other two thirds that were not covered in the first part.

Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) continues his journey on the desert planet of Arrakis/Dune among the world's natives, the Fremen, learning their ways and getting closer to Chani (Zendaya), while his pregnant mother Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother for the Fremen. Paul seeks revenge against the Harkonnen and Imperial conspirators who destroyed his family, and to do so he must embrace his destiny as a messianic figure for the Fremen and rally them. While he knows this can lead to a terrible future, Paul, now using the moniker "Muad'Dib", chooses this path.

Reprising their roles from the first film are Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohiam. Joining the cast are Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV and Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring.

The film released on March 1, 2024. A fan preview screening was held on February 25, 2024. Villeneuve is already writing a sequel based on Dune Messiah, and Hans Zimmer is already working on the soundtrack.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2, Trailer 3.

For the other live-action adaptations of Dune, see Dune (1984) and Frank Herbert's Dune.

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Dune: Part Two provides examples of:

Tropes A - C

• Accent Adaptation: Turns out there's an in-universe reason that Chani doesn't have the strong accent Stilgar has — he's from the south of Arrakis and she from the north.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Stilgar (Javier Bardem) tells Gurney (Josh Brolin) that if he was looking for something, he would have found it.
  • Josh Brolin and Dave Bautista fighting because one is responsible for the death of the other's family, but this time it’s reversed.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • In the novels, "Abomination" is a Bene Gesserit term for people controlled by their ego-memories, generally due to exposition while in fetal state. Accordingly, Mohiam calls Alia an Abomination when she finds out she is pre-born. In the film, however, Alia is absent from the scene, so Mohiam uses the term for Paul, who is not an Abomination in any sense and she doesn't have any reason to think he might be (rather the opposite, in fact). Instead, she seems to simply be reacting to Paul, a man, using the Voice against her. ^note  Considering she is looking at Jessica rather than Paul when she says this, it's more likely that she realized Jessica was carrying a pre-born child (the only possibility for a pregnant Reverend Mother) rather than referring to Paul.
  • In the book, Gurney asked Paul to let him fight Feyd-Rautha in his stead because he wanted to exact at least a modicum of retribution on the Harkonnens after the Fremen had robbed him of the chance to kill Rabban. Here, because Gurney successfully takes his revenge on Rabban, he makes the request because he doesn't believe a psychopath like Feyd is worth Paul's time and effort.
  • Baron Harkonnen's plan in the novel was to have Rabban become so hated as the governor of Arrakis that when the Baron replaced Rabban with Feyd-Rautha, the people (and especially the Fremen) would love him, become loyal to House Harkonnen, and give the Baron leverage to make a play for the throne. This point is dropped from the movie, when the Baron apparently thinking that Rabban could actually handle the job and only replacing him with Feyd when it became obvious to everyone Rabban was failing miserably.
  • In the book, Paul figures out that Jessica is the Baron's daughter right after their escape from Arrakeen, when he has his visions while in the tent. Here, both of them learn of this via taking the Water of Life - Jessica first, and Paul after. This has the effect of implying that being awoken to their heritage is what changes both of them to being more manipulative and ruthless. Paul even declaring that they'll have to be Harkonnens to survive.
  • The film puts more emphasis on how becoming the Lisan al Gaib corrupts Paul, and how his own mother turned more manipulative and ruthless, and de-emphasizes the complex politics of the Imperium. The end result is that the movie portrays Paul's Jihad as something Paul and Jessica (and their newfound character flaws) are more directly the cause of, him giving the order to his Fremen to attack the great houses while his mother looks on proudly. The books meanwhile puts the Jihad as the result of societal forces. Paul does become more ruthless in his time as Muad'dib, but ultimately it is the great houses' ambitions stifled for 10,000 years under the leadership of house Corrino and suddenly finding the power vacuum that causes them to rush to grab a slice of the pie, while the Bene Gesserit have unknowingly created a zealous force of unparallel strength and fanaticism that's just bursting at the seams to follow a leader against their oppressors. One of the big things Paul learns is that seeing the future also renders him helpless to change the future. He could choose to not do anything but the societal forces present would still be moving towards that bloody conflict. In the book you also get narration from Paul's own inner thoughts which paints a more obvious view of how much he's trying to resist the whole prophecy and jihad thing, but the forces involved are too strong and sweeping him along. As the film doesn't let us see Paul's inner thoughts, it's not as clear what he thinks especially once he's taken the Water of Life as unlike before he's not given scenes to exposit his opposition to what is happening.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • The distribution of Jamis' possessions after his funeral, including his wife Harah, is left out. The funeral itself isn't expanded beyond his water being extracted and deposited in the Sietch Tabr reservoir.
  • Some time after Paul and Jessica join the Fremen, the book features a time skip of a couple of years. The film doesn't have this time skip and the whole Fremen rebellion obviously lasts less than a year, as evidenced by Jessica still being pregnant during the ending. Due to this shortened timeline, Alia has not been born yet, but she's still in the movie (as a sapient foetus able to communicate with her mother from the womb thanks to the exposure to the Water of Life).
  • Due to the above mentioned passage of time, in the book Chani's relationship with Paul had been going on for much longer and was far more secure (they actually had a child), while in the film she's incensed at Paul's decision to marry Irulan and actually leaves him to return to the desert; although Paul does say she will eventually understand his reasons, as he has foreseen it.
  • Paul's vision implies that Baron Harkonnen either knew he was Jessica's father, or at least knew that he had a daughter at one point. Neither is true in the book.
  • The spice orgy that occurs after Jessica's ascension to Reverend Mother in the book does not happen here. Likewise, most of the elements of sietch life, such as the yalis, are left out.
  • Like the first film, Baron Harkonnen's sexual proclivities are removed. It notably would have become plot relevant in this segment of the story, where in the book Feyd-Rautha made an attempt on the Baron's life using one of the latter's sex slaves as the assasin. Nonetheless, the Baron does kiss Feyd on the lips after his coming of age celebration.
  • Emperor Shaddam is aware of Paul's survival before his arrival on Arrakis. In the books, Alia is the one who informs the Emperor of Muad'Dib's true identity. This also makes Shaddam's anger towards the Baron played differently, as he is not only angered by the Baron's failure to pacify the planet but also because the Baron failed to tie up a loose end. In the book it is implied Shaddam wrongly suspected the Baron of collaborating with the Atreides to destroy him.
  • In the movie, an armada made up of the combined forces of all the Great Houses amasses in orbit over Arrakis because Baron Harkonnen erroneously sends out word that the Emperor has come to the planet to destroy House Harkonnen with his Sardaukar. And they are held off from landing by Paul's threat of using nukes to destroy the spice fields. This is quite different from the books, where the Great Houses come with the Emperor to put down the Fremen Revolt, are able to do so only because the Spacing Guild lowers its rates, and remain in orbit because the Guild tells them to. The resolution of this situation is also different: in the book Paul orders the Guild to take everyone back home. In the movie it is implied the Fremen holy war begins with an assault on the warships in orbit.
  • The details about Atomics and the taboo of using them are removed from the movie. Paul still only uses them against the Shield Wall but the details that using them on the Sardaukars would've caused every other house to nuke him in return is left out. This also leave Paul more free to threaten to nuke the spice fields rather than instead threaten to use the Water of Death as he does in the book.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • The film excises several subplots from the book, such as Thufir Hawat's imprisonment by Piter de Vries (who bit it in the first film instead), Paul training the Fedaykin in the Weirding Way (the Bene Gesserit fighting technique), and the involvement of the Spacing Guild in Paul's rise to power. After the premiere, director Villeneuve admitted that quite a few scenes and subplots were actually filmed, but he later cut them out both because the overall film was getting too long and it affected the internal pacing.
  • The movie dramatizes Paul's integration with the Fremen but also excises additional details. Notably, in the book, Paul and Chani had a son, Leto, who was born during the Time Skip and who died as a baby just before the climax, when the Harkonnens attack Sietch Tabr. The book version of Chani is also the daughter of Liet-Kynes, with Paul noting that their recent paternal losses draw them together. These are dropped from the film.
  • Paul's threat to the Spacing Guild is different in the book. If poured into a pre-spice mass, the Water of Life becomes the Water of Death, causing a chain reaction which would kill every sandworm and end the spice forever. This odd, slightly Ass Pull-y second ability of the Water gets distilled down to having the spice only occur in certain geographic locations, that Paul threatens to destroy with atomic weapons.
  • As a logical consequence of the book plot point where many Atreides thought Jessica was the mole being removed from the first movie, the scene where Gurney attempts to murder her to avenge Leto doesn't happen.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The movie expands more on the cultural differences between the Fremen tribes: the Northern Fremen are in constant state of conflict with Imperial authorities, thus they are lesser in number, more militaristic, more wary of outsiders, and don't strictly believe in the prophecy of a chosen Messiah that will deliver them from Imperial oppression and transform Arrakis into a green paradise (or at least, that the Messiah will be a native-born Fremen, not an offworlder). The Southern Fremen on the other hand are more elusive (living beyond the Coriolis storms) and the extreme weather means the heat is even deadlier than in the north, which is why the Southern Fremen spend most of their time in the Sietches underground. Under such harsh conditions, faith usually takes a central role in people's lives, and the prophecies of the Lisan al-Gaib have taken much deeper roots than in the north. Chani is stated to be a Northern Fremen, being skeptical of the prophecy and has a more "American" accent, while Stilgar is a Southern Fremen with stronger faith in the Lisan al-Gaib and has a thicker, more "Middle-Eastern" accent.
  • As in the 1984 movie, the variety of psychic powers in the film's universe is expanded too with telepathy being thrown in to the mix, even although in the book (Alia's contact with Mohiam notwithstanding) it was considered unmastered by that point of history. In the movie, Jessica communicates telepathically with her unborn daughter throughout the film.
  • The book goes from Jessica becoming a Reverend Mother, and Paul and Chani starting out their relationship, to a Time Skip a few years later during which Jessica's daughter is now two years old, Paul has already assimilated, he and Chani are married in all but name, and have even had a child together. The film omits this entirely, instead actually depicting Paul's process of Going Native.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • The film version of Reverend Mother Ramallo has the Voice, a trained skill which only Bene Gesserit know and teach, despite she is not a Bene Gesserit but a natural Reverend Mother born of Fremen culture. While it's not impossible than her genetic memories contained someone related to the Bene Gesserit who could have taught her, it's notable that both in the film and the novels, Fremen are not even familiar with the standard Bene Gesserit skillset: they are vaguely aware that the Bene Gesserit can exert some verbal "sorcery" and consequently bar Jessica from speaking in Paul's duel, but they still ignore the technique's details enough that they have no problem with her speaking the rest of the time, when she could use it all the same.
  • The film version of Feyd-Rautha is exposed to the gom jabbar and survives to the ordeal, despite not having any Bene Gesserit training and not even knowing much about them judging by his lines to Margot. In the novels, it's not necessarily impossible for an untrained person to pass the test, but it would require an ungodly amount of natural discipline and restraint, which Harkonnens are not exactly known for having, and of which the filmic Feyd is still far from being an example anyway. The movie gets away with this by implying Feyd is Too Kinky to Torture.
  • In the movie, Baron Harkonnen responds to the Emperor's arrival in Arrakis by calling all the other royal houses for backup on the claim Shaddam is arbitrarily attacking him, and the houses readily comply, to the point Paul himself notes Shaddam is neck-deep in an additional problem even if Paul is defeated. Making the Baron so unprecedently powerful and influential in the movie doesn't jive easily with the basic premise that the Atreides had to be wiped out for their potential to become a threat — it makes it instead look like Mohiam and Shaddam had a collective Horrible Judge of Character when they deemed it necessary to destroy the notoriously honor-bound Atreides rather than the much less trustworthy and more Obviously Evil Harkonnens, who in this case successfully realize all the fears they harbored about the Atreides.
  • The very decision to have Mohiam being the grey eminence behind the fall of the Atreides only opens questions within the movies' continuity, as it gives her conflicting courses of action. In the novel, the character's role in the conspiration was vague, and there was the strong implication that the Bene Gesserit were simply being forced to go with the tide and save what they could of their breeding program from the Emperor' and the Baron's treachery. In the films, it's not explained why the person who orchestrated everything also asked specifically for Jessica and Paul to be spared, as any possible future cooperation would depend on the flimsy condition that they never even suspected that she was the one who had their house wiped out.
• Adaptational Late Appearance:
  • In the original book, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was first introduced near the beginning of the story, immediately setting him up as an important player in the narrative and a key rival to Paul. Due to him being omitted entirely from the previous film, which adapted the first half of the book, Feyd-Rautha's introduction in Part Two brings him into the story much later than usual, though he still plays a significant role.
  • For a non-human case, the old-fashioned artillery which Rabban deployed against Atreides survivors during the initial invasion is used here in the Harkonnen counterattack against the Fremen.
• Adaptational Romance Downgrade: Because of the compression of the time span (see Adaptational Timespan Change below), Paul and Chani's relationship is on far more shaky ground than in the book. Also, film!Chani is much more actively and openly aware of and hostile to how her people's faith is the result of Bene Gesserit influence to control them, so she's far more angry at Paul's actions when he accepts his destiny. In the book the pair not only had a child (which they lost) during the war, but Chani in general is okay with most of Paul's actions, even marrying Irulan, as she's aware that Paul has no plan to give Irulan a child or any affection, making Chani the concubine closer to the real wife. In the film, Chani actually leaves Paul in disgust both at him claiming the role of the Fremen Messiah and announcing his intention to marry Irulan, something bound to have heavy repercussions on attempts to adapt other Dune novels.
• Adaptational Timespan Change: The film takes place over the course of a few months (judging from how Jessica is pregnant with Alia at the beginning but has not yet given birth by the end). The equivalent portions of the book took place over a couple of years — long enough for Paul and Chani to have a baby son and for Alia to grow into a precocious child. These, along with other subplots, are absent in the film.
• Adapted Out:
  • The film features Lady Margot Fenring but does not mention her husband, Count Hasimir Fenring. To be fair, he was a One-Scene Wonder in the original novel.
  • Jamis' widow Harah and their children have no role in the film.
  • The Spacing Guild is completely absent from the film despite playing a mayor role in how the final battle unfolds in the book.
  • Thufir Hawat is one of Duke Leto's highest-ranked retainers, but the least important of them behind Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck and Dr. Yueh. His most important subplot (a "We ARE Struggling Together" situation with Lady Jessica) is easily left behind, and since that got cut out of the first film, there's basically no reason to have him in the second. He doesn't appear at all.
• Age Lift:
  • Emperor Shaddam is in his seventies in the book, but looks to be a vigorous man in his thirties thanks to Spice consumption. Here, he's played by Christopher Walken, who was in his late seventies during filming and looks like it.
  • Alia is described as "a girl-child of two years" who acts and speaks with adult knowledge and experience (and a lisp). As such, she's aged down by the adaptation, aided by the compressed time frame, and has yet to be born by the film's end.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While there really wasn't much else he could do, the dismissive manner in which Paul orders all the Sardaukar with Shaddam killed AFTER they've been already ordered to stand down by the emperor is not one of his best moments.
• Alien Sky: Giedi Prime in daylight is shown to have a milky white sky with a black sun. Its sunlight washes out the color of anything it lands on, so that everything appears in grayscale.
• All for Nothing:
  • By the end of the film, the conspiracy against House Atreides ultimately comes to nothing. Shaddam Corrino loses his throne, Mohiam and the Bene Gesserit lose both Kwisatz Haderach candidates - Feyd being dead and Paul beyond the Sisterhood's control - and the Harkonnens lose both control of Arrakis and their lives.
  • Similarly, all of Paul's attempts to revenge his House on the Harkonnens without triggering the Holy War he's forseen in his visions ultimately fail.
• Allowed Internal War: Princess Irulan advices her father to allow the conflicts between the Harkonnen and Fremen escalate into a full blown war, so he can intervene and be seen as the bringer of peace.
• Altar Diplomacy: During his final confrontation with the Emperor and his conspirators, one of Paul's demands is Irulan's hand in marriage, and Irulan agrees to be his bride on the condition that her father's life be spared. There is no romance at present between the two - this being their first ever meeting - and Paul's only intent is to gain a legitimate claim to the throne through marrying the Emperor's daughter.
• Ambiguous Situation: Gurney states he rallied some House Atreides survivors and bartered with smugglers to send them back to Caladan. Gurney doesn't say how many survived. Paul also notably doesn't ask. In the book, Gurney explicitly states that most of the people he rallied made it off-planet and a few are among the free traders.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Paul pulls this on Irulan at the end of the movie, telling her and the Emperor that she will be his bride in order to cement his claim to the Imperial throne.
• And This Is for...:
  • Attempted by random Fremen after chasing Rabban onto his disembarking ornithopter, only for her to be shot.
  • When Gurney kills Rabban, he snarls "For my Duke! And my friends!"
• And Starring: "With Stellan Skarsgård With Charlotte Rampling And Javier Bardem"
• Armies Are Evil: If the first movie had a clear view on which is the heroic army and which is the evil army, the sequel completely muddies the lines. The main three arm forces, the Harkonnen, Sardaukar and the Fremen are all shown in a negative light. The Harkonnen and Sardaukar are obviously evil for being part of an imperialistic faction, and the Fremen are portrayed as religious fanatics who embark on a Holy War at the end of the movie, no longer being the sympathetic freedom fighters from the first movie.
• Arcadian Interlude: Brief scenes featuring Princess Irulan and Emperor Shaddam IV depict them residing in a verdant, peaceful world, presumably Kaitain, the Imperial capital. This environment stands in stark contrast to the harsh environments of Arrakis, Salusa Secundus and Giedi Prime, where violence and conflict are commonplace.
• Art Deco: The imperial residence of Princess Irulan and Emperor Shaddam was filmed in Italy, at the Brion cemetery.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Paul sustains seemingly serious knife wounds during his fight with Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. However, he removes the weapons himself and remains relatively unharmed. This contrasts with other characters throughout the film who succumb immediately to knife injuries. Not only this, but Paul even draws the knife out of his wounds, one might expect him or other characters to know that taking out an object from a deep wound can cause a serious hemorrhage. In the book, he's barely scratched.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Princess Irulan's role is increased from the source material, where plenty of her books are quoted but she herself doesn't appear in person until the last chapter; in the film, she works out that Paul may still be alive and brings her concerns to her father the Emperor.
  • Rabban only appears in a single scene in the book, though he is mentioned often. In the film he has a much larger on-stage role in battling the Fremen and his death is depicted on-screen.
• Ascended Meme: After all the memes about Gurney's memetic inability to smile from the previous movie, he is finally smiling here upon discovering Paul is alive.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: By analyzing data, intel, and rumors from Arrakis, Irulan correctly deduces Paul is still alive (or at least may still be alive).
• Awful Truth: Paul learns that he and his mother are Harkonnens in the last act of the movie, with this revelation being one of the catastrophes that changes Paul's personal identity and worldview. In the book, this revelation comes much earlier, via his prescience, and is essentially irrelevant by the end.
• Bad Boss: Seemingly a family trait for the Harkonnens:
  • Rabban brutally smashes one of his adjutant's heads into a console just because the man suggested he get some rest, and later murders a thopter pilot for failing to instantly obey his orders.
  • Baron Vladimir violently kills two of his attendants to vent some rage at Rabban's failures to subdue the Fremen's uprising, and he threatens Rabban's own life if he continues to disappoint.
  • Feyd-Rautha occasionally kills his servants because he can, or because his concubines are hungry.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The film deconstructs and reconstructs this. By the end of the movie There really isn't a "good guy" on the surface. The Great Houses are in orbit overhead and reject Paul's ascendency to the throne. Paul, in response, sends the Fremen and starts the holy war. Yes, Paul may have gotten his revenge. However, a bad guy (the Baron) was replaced with a bad guy (Paul). Jessica tells Mohiam that she "chose the wrong side", to which Mohiam quips, "There are no sides".
• Badass Army: The climax features a decisive confrontation for the control of Arrakis. The Fremen arrive in overwhelming numbers, completely outmatching the combined forces of the Harkonnens and the Sardaukar. Their sheer numbers and ferocious fighting style render the battle a one-sided affair. Additionally, their awe-inspiring arrival riding colossal sandworms elevates the spectacle and emphasizes their dominance over the battlefield. One cannot get more badass than that in the world of Dune.
• Bad Vibrations: As always, sand vibrating is a sign sand worms are approaching. This is used at full effect in the final act. The Fremen ride sand worms hiding in the sand storms, and the only thing that announces the Sardaukar of their arrival is the sand vibrations.
• Bald of Evil: The bald and ruthless Harkonnens (Baron Vladimir, Glossu Rabban and everyone else serving them) again, with the addition of Feyd-Rautha.
• Barefoot Captives: The three Atreides prisoners (including Lt. Lanville) who are "offered" to Feyd-Rautha in the arena to be slaughtered for his birthday are shirtless, barefoot and wear short pants.
• Batman Gambit: After drinking the Water of Life, Paul now not only anticipates, but knows every move his enemies will do. Paul sends a message to the Emperor to challenge him, expecting the emperor to respond out of honor and take the bait. Emperor Shaddam IV and the entire imperial court come to Arrakis, where Paul launches a surprise attack on them, leading to the final defeat of both House Corrino and House Harkonnen.
• Battle Couple: Paul and Chani are shown working quite well together while taking down a Harkonnen spice harvesting-machine.
• Beast of Battle: The Sand Worms are already shown to be efficient means of transport throughout the film, but are also ultimately deployed as such in the climax—becoming personnel carriers of Muad'Dib and the Fremen as they assault Shaddam IV's fleet. Their sheer size is also enough to overwhelm all the Sardaukar who survived the nuclear bombardment of the surrounding mountain ranges.
• Believing Their Own Lies: As the film progresses, Paul, who was adamant in Part One and in the beginning of this movie that he is not, and will not be, the mass-murdering Lisan al-Gaib, slowly and surely becomes convinced, if not simply acting the part with great conviction. Compare his insistence he's no Messiah in the beginning to his roaring, bloodthirsty, egotistical command to the Fremen council. Likewise, his mother goes from reluctant pawn of the Bene Gesserit to a raving prophet.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The second battle for the liberation of Arrakis involves bombing the surrounding mountain ranges with the Atreides' atomic arsenal, massive explosions, the Fremen arriving on the battlefield by riding sand worms, brutal hand-to-hand combat erupting as the Fremen and the Sardaukar soldiers clash, more massive explosions, Gurney killing Rabban, and Zimmer providing a spectacular soundtrack heightening the intensity of the battle, amplifying the chaos on display.
• Big Bad: Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam. While the Baron was the main villain of the Part One, he was merely a puppet in the entire scheme, as was the Emperor. The plot was revealed to be orchestrated by Reverend Mother Mohiam and the Bene Gesserit - including Jessica - playing puppet master to manipulate the Emperor into destroying House Atreides as part of the larger effort to manipulate bloodlines to produce the Kwisatz Haderach. Both The Baron and Emperor's actions in this film made them more of big bad wannabes. In the end, it all goes south for everyone because Paul is out of the Bene Gesserit's control.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Paul and Chani kiss while watching the sunset on Arrakis leading to a Relationship Upgrade between the two.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: Part Two really highlights how the feudalism and astropolitical aspects of Dune ensures that the archetypal "good guy" faction always finish last. The Great Houses, even noble ones like Atreides are nothing more than military dictatorships all subservient to a Galactic Empire, which in turn, are dependent and guided by several groups of mercurial puppet masters with a strong monopoly on strategic assets. Even the archetypal "freedom fighters" like the Fremen are at best a bunch of Proud Warrior Race Guys, and at worst a group of highly fanatical religious fundamentalists that will blindly commit atrocities in the name of their messiah. The end of the film hammers home how even a traditional nice guy like Paul is willing to corrupt himself to ensure his own political survival by launching a galactic-scale Jihad with all the horrid consequences that come with it.
• Black Speech: Like Part One, the film starts with "Dreams are Messages from the Deep" in the Sardaukar's throat singing style.
• Bloodless Carnage: As with the first film, there's very little bloody violence depicted on screen. We see blades stained with blood, but injury detail is not illustrated. Despite this, people still die in shockingly brutal ways throughout the film.
• Blood Knight: Feyd-Rautha seems to enjoy a good fair fight.
• Bond One-Liner: Paul gives one while killing Vladimir as he lies helpess on the ground.
  Paul: You die like an animal.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In spades with the Harkonnens believing that southern Arrakis was uninhabitable and never bothering to check out. The Emperor isn't so convinced and calls them out on it.
• Book Ends:
  • Early in the movie, Harkonnen troops are shown burning the corpses of the Atreides army and household. After the climactic battle is won, the Harkonnens' own dead are burned by the victorious Fremen, now flying the Atreides banner.
  • If taking the Dune diptych as a single work:
    • The first film opened with a shot of Chani's face as she prepared to fight the Harkonnens alongside her fellow Fremen. This movie ends with a shot of Chani's face as she, disillusioned with Paul and rejecting her people's fanaticism, returns to the desert alone.
    • Chani's opening monologue in Part One ends with the Harkonnen forces mobilizing to board their ships and leave Arrakis in obedience to the Emperor's orders, while Chani speculates "who will our next oppressors be?" Part Two ends with the Fremen mobilizing to board ships outbound from Arrakis by order of the new emperor, Paul Atreides, who has secured absolute domination of their people.
    • In the beginning of the first film, Paul has a practice knife fight with Gurney, and loses because Gurney would have been able to stab Paul in the guts (if it had been an actual duel to the death) at the moment Paul thought he had won. During the climax of the second film, Paul lets himself be (non-fatally) stabbed by Feyd-Rautha to stab him in the guts at the same time.
  • Feyd's first fight ends with him fatally stabbing Atreides prisoner Lanville after a prolonged fight with the latter and sincerely compliments him for the challenge, "You fought well, Atreides." In his fight with Paul at the end of the film, Feyd is defeated the same way he did Lanville and echoes his words to compliment Paul besting him before succumbing to his wounds.
• Boring, but Practical: In contrast to how he approaches personal combat (and how Rabban approaches anti-guerilla), Feyd-Rautha's response to the Northern Fremen uprising is to simply park a gunship above each and every known sietch and drop enough ordnance on them to melt or collapse the very rocks they're under. Baron Harkonnen is actually impressed by its simplicity. Needless to say, it devastates the Fremen and, were it not for Paul going south to rally legions of Fremen believers, would've likely ended the rebellion right then and there.
• Breather Episode: The first third of the film, while not quite "light-hearted", is still a much breezier time than the intense last hour of the previous film as it focuses on Paul training with the Fremen, falling in love with Chani and gaining several victories against the Harkonnens - with a few jokes, mainly from Stilgar, peppered in here and there. Once Jessica drinks the water of life and Feyd-Rautha comes onto the scene, things get much darker.
• "Bringer of War" Music: "The worm army", the drums start to beat when the Fremen charge in huge numbers at the Sardaukar.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Like the original book, the muad'dib is a Jerboa in space!
• Call-Back:
  • During his first scene in the previous film, Paul asked Gurney for a song seemingly in jest. Gurney's first scene in this movie has him strumming his baliset while singing about life with the smugglers.
  • Paul insists to Gurney that he'd know who is walking toward him after the latter tells the former to not stand with his back to the door. Paul also referred to Gurney as "Old Man". When Paul's army ambushes his harvester (a stolen Atreides model), he says the Exact Words used when Gurney rescues him from the incoming worm attack on the harvester of the first film before calling off the attack.
  Paul: "I recognize your footsteps, old man."
  • During a training session in the previous film, Paul was able to overpower Gurney and hold his knife to the latter's neck, only for Gurney to point out that his own blade would have been piercing Paul's stomach without him realizing. In this film, Paul is able to turn this trick on Feyd-Rautha during their climactic duel, allowing the latter's knife to impale his shoulder (albeit non-fatally) while jamming his own blade into Feyd's stomach, killing him.
  • The two films endings mirror one another: Part 1 ends with Paul and Jessica joining the Fremen and walking off with them in the desert, in a hopeful note. Part 2 ends with Chani walking into the desert alone, watching as her people head to wage war across the stars, in a much more tragic note.
• The Cameo: Anya Taylor-Joy appears in one of Paul's visions as an adult Alia.
• Cerebus Call-Back: For the first half of the film, Stilgar and the other southern Fremens' faith in Paul is mostly Played for Laughs, with their repeated insistence that he is their Messiah almost being comparable to the followers in Life of Brian. Come the darker turn in the second half, this serves as an early warning sign of Stilgar and the Fremen losing their minds and agency to their idolization of Paul, and the extreme lengths to which they'll go because of it.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Thufir Hawat is not seen or mentioned at all in the film, despite having a prominent role in the previous installment and his book counterpart still being present at this point in the original story.
• Compelling Voice: The Bene Gesseritt continue to do this - and more frequently than in Part One. Lady Margot uses the Voice on Feyd to trick him toward the Guest wing. Mohiam uses it against Irulan to get her to stop speculating about Paul Atredies being alive and to keep it secret from her father. Reverend Mother Ramello uses it to command Jessica to take the Water of Life. Jessica is the one who uses it the most on several Fremen to drive the prophecy (including on Chani in order to revive Paul). Paul is it on the Fremem leaders (combined with mind reading) and gets the last one in on Mohiam herself.
• Conlang: David J. Peterson came back to expand more on the languages he made for the first film, particularly expanding on Chakobsa due to the Fremen being much more prominent in this film than the last. A particularly impressive usage of Chakobsa is in Paul's speech to the southern Fremen after drinking the Water of Life and deciding to become their messiah to exact his vengeance against the Harkonnens, with the majority of the scene being spoken in Chakobsa, and it shows a mashup of languages primarily used by Buddhists and Muslims alike, per the Interfaith Smoothie of Zensunni that gave rise to the Fremen.

Paul: E Rudhi Dina, heshidanii: ne Lisaan al-Gayib! ^{translation (spoilers)}Hand of God be my witness, I am the Voice from the Outer World!

• Confirmation Bias: invoked In-Universe: As part of the original book's critique of religion, what we hear of the prophecies of the Lisan al-Gaib are open-ended to the point that any foreigner white boy unfamiliar with Fremen culture could have fulfilled it, which is why Chani and a number of Fremen are skeptical or hostile towards Paul. Even the smallest gestures convert non-believer Fremen who hated Paul at first, and serve to whip up the Fremen into an even bigger frenzy:
  • Paul's insistence that he is NOT the Messiah, as any person who doesn't want to wind up leading a massive genocide would sanely deny, only fulfills the Prophecy that the Lisan al-Gaib is humble, which helps Stigar to warm up to him and convert more Fremen to his cause.
  • The Lisan al-Gaib will summon a gigantic sandworm. All of them are gigantic, and you don't get to pick and choose which Sandworm you get, but Stigar and even the sceptics fall for that hype.
  • The Lisan al-Gaib will move to the South to start a revolution. He didn't have a choice: Feyd-Rautha's much more competent operations against the Fremen would have killed every Fremen in the North if Paul didn't evacuate the survivors to the South.
  • When Paul finally accepts his fate, he still tries to ensure he doesn't kill anyone, Fremen culture or not. When Stigar offers himself as a sacrifice, Paul's angry denial of it is taken as the Prophet re-writing Fremen tradition for the better.^note In Fremen culture, refusing to kill a person is a grave insult.
• Connected All Along: In the final act of the movie, Paul sees a vision of his mother as a baby and learns that Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is his grandfather. During his fight with Reyd, he calls Feyd "cousin", although the latter is only mildly curious at the revelation.
• Crapsack World: In the beginning of the movie, Paul describes the world to his unborn sister as being "beyond cruelty". And while it's not explicitly shown, Paul's visions from the last movie and this movie show a universe plunged into a violent war.
• Cult: The way the movie presents the Fremens blindly believing in their prophesy and lady Jessica acting like a cult leader spreading the word of her son being their Messiah and poisoning everyone's minds despite Paul's objections, is very reminiscent of real zealous cults. She starts by targeting the most vulnerable and desperate as they are the most receptive to a message of salvation, and once converted they are used to indoctrinate their friends and family. There is a jarring scene where Jessica uses Paul's riding of a Grandfather worm to further twist the prophesy to their advantage. None of her followers question the validity of Jessica's words and just do what they are told.
  Jessica: Shai-Hulud shall bow to the Boy from the Outer World. Will not Shai-hulud know Mahdi when He comes? Then share the Word.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Once Gurney manages to catch up to Rabban during the final battle, he swiftly overwhelms his Harkonnen nemesis in a brief exchange of blows before fatally running him through.
  • The entire Final Battle is a one-sided affair and gets portrayed almost as an afterthought or foregone conclusion - Paul's fanaticized Fremen forces effortlessly steamroll the Harkonnen and Sardaukar soldiers (who can't do anything against the sand worms) in only a few minutes of screentime in an even quicker way than when those annihilated the Atreides.

Tropes D - M

• Dance of Romance: Chani teaching Paul to properly sandwalk is framed in a way evocative of the trope, with the two of them moving in synch, side-by-side, in a particular (lack of) rythym.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen managed to survive Duke Leto's suicide attack in the first film, but is now hooked up to a number of devices to keep his vital organs going, at the very least his lungs.
• Dark Secret: Princess Irulan refers verbatim to the end of House Atreides as one, meaning that no-one in the galaxy outside of the Harkonnens, Sardaukar, Emperor and the Bene Gesserit circle of Reverend Mother Mohiam (who all conspired to eliminate the Atreides in the first film) knows what truly happened to them. Soldiers are seen burning material remains belonging to them (including a portrait of Duke Leto) as she says so.
• Dawn of an Era: Paul's ascension as the new Emperor marks the end of House Corrino as the rulers, as well the Fremen finally achieving their desired freedom from the oppressive regime of the former Emperor and the Harkonnen.
• Deadly Dust Storm:
  • There's a perpetual sand storm making it difficult to reach the southern hemisphere of Arrakis, and because of this the Harkonnens think it's uninhabitable, while the majority of the Fremen actually live there. The Fremen ride sand worms to cross the storm, and Jessica, now on the way to fully become a Reverend Mother for the Fremen, gets a protective palanquin for the trip on a sand worm's back.
  • Paul times the Fremen's attack on the Emperor's throne to coincide with a strong sandstorm. The storm both takes down the throne ship's protective shield and wipes out the Harkonnen air units, ensuring neither side has air dominance.
• Death by Irony: Well, right after death. In the first film, Baron Harkonnen ordered his men to leave Jessica and Paul for dead, in the desert. When Paul kills Harkonnen, Paul tells the Fremen to leave the body for the desert. If the stabbing didn't kill him, the desert sure did. Plus, puppetmaster Harkonnen dies on the steps of the throne he coveted, unable to get to it for multiple reasons, with his own "strings" cut.
• Decisive Battle: The second battle of Arrakis appears to be a decisive victory for the Fremen. They liberate themselves from the oppressive rule of the Harkonnens and the Padishah Emperor, however, their victory marks the beginning of an even bigger conflict, a holy war led by Paul Atreides.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Harkonnens' home planet Giedi Prime has a black sun, and is completely devoid of colour during its outside scenes. All scenes taking place during daytime (particularly the Gladiator Games for Feyd-Rautha's birthday) are presented in a stark black and white, due to the black sun’s unusual milky white light. Fireworks are also devoid of color, showing up as completely black during the daytime, and pure white at night.
• Demoted to Extra: Lady Margot was a fairly prominent supporting character in the book, but has only a few scenes here.
• Desert Warfare: Naturally, all the military conflicts take place in the arid deserts of Arrakis.The Fremen make full use of their Home Field Advantage to ensue their decisive victory against the Empire in their second major clash. They use sand worms to attack the imperial war machines and ambush the Sardaukar during the chaos provoked by their attacks.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Right at the beginning of the movie, princess Irulan narrates how both her and her father have never been the same since the fall of House Atreides. Apparently, the emperor couldn't even bring himself to react from the shock of what happened under his own orders.
  • Paul realises that no matter what, the Prophecy in which he commands an army of genocidal zealots to slaughter billions across the universe are true; furthermore, the Water of Life shows him a vision that convinces him it'll all be worth it. The weight of this causes him to wholeheartedly accept his embrace of the Jihad.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • In all the previous adaptations, Baron Harkonnen dies as the result of Alia stabbing him with a Gom Jabbar, and the 1984 film additionally has her tear out his heart plugs and then send him telekinetically flying into the mouth of a sandworm. Here, he gets a death that's partly taken from Rabban's death in the 1984 film, with one of the Emperor's guards destroying his life support system in a You Have Failed Me moment for not taking out Paul, who later finishes him off personally.
  • In the book and the miniseries, Rabban is killed by the Fremen during the final battle, while in the 1984 film the Emperor executes him for not putting down Paul's rebellion. In this film, Halleck catches up to and kills him during in attempt to escape Arrakis.
  • In the book and the 1984 film, Feyd-Rautha was fatally stabbed under his jaw and into his brain by Paul, instantaneously killing him. However in this film, Paul kills Feyd by fatally stabbing him in the gut, toning down the violence to a minimum while serving both a bookend to the former’s practice fight with Gurney in the beginning of the first part and an Ironic Echo for the latter by telling Paul that he fought well, just like what he said when he killed Lanville earlier.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • During Feyd-Rautha's birthday gladatorial match, we see that the very white (to the point of being albino) Harkonnens live under "their glorious black sun" to witness a "a spectacle of blood and honor."
  • As with the book's inspirations and modern-day religious (especially Islamist) fundamentalism, Paul goes from desperate freedom fighter into an unabashed terrorist claiming to be a messenger of God, braying to spill the blood of non-believers to carve out a ethnoreligious state and committing acts of massive terror and genocide via bombing runs and suicide attacks; at least some of this is simply using religion to take revenge. He even takes a would-be harem.
• Downer Beginning: The movie starts with a monologue held by princess Irulan, who explains the fall of House Atreides, while the movies rolls scenes with Harkonnen soldiers burning the bodies of the fallen Atreides soldiers.
• Downer Ending: Practically nobody wins by the end of the Arrakis conflict. Paul successfully avenges his house upon the Emperor and House Harkonnen, but in doing so loses his humanity and submits himself to the prophecy as the Fremen's messiah who will wage a holy war across the universe, claiming billions of lives, making him no better than his hated enemies. Chani is left devastated by Paul's descent into darkness and returns to the desert, alone and without her people. The film in no way portrays the ending as triumphant, framing it as a tragedy that was almost inevitable.
• The Dreaded: Every non-Fremen on Arrakis is terrified of Muad'Dib. Paul ruefully admits that he's exploiting that fear because it's one of the few advantages he has against the Harkonnens.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Shishakli shouts to Paul to not "embarrass us; call a big one" to which every Fremen reacts to by laughing, except Chani, who's worried sick that Paul might die in the process.
• Elite Mooks: This movie especially highlights what a formidable fighting force the Fremen can be even in small numbers. Only Paul's 200-strong Fremen contingent consistently proves to be made of highly skilled and effective warriors. They disrupt Rabban's spice harvesting operations with impressive efficiency, demonstrating their ability to inflict significant damage even against larger forces. Their deadliness is not due to overwhelming numbers, but rather their exceptional training, ruthless tactics, and intimate knowledge of the harsh desert environment. Gurney notes that they the Fremen would be basically unstoppable in huge numbers.
• Evil Costume Switch: Upon Paul accepting his role as a Dark Messiah, he starts wearing a black cloak for the remainder of the film.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Downplayed when Paul reunites with Gurney. The War Master's hair has significantly grown out from the military-style buzz cut of the first film (showcasing both his current reduced situation and the passage of time since the fall of House Atreides).
• Facial Markings: Lady Jessica gets markings once she becomes the Fremen's new Reverend Mother.
• Failed a Spot Check: The southern half of Arrakis seems so inhospitable that the Harkonnens and most of the galaxy at large just assume it's uninhabitable. They are shocked to learn that the majority of the Fremen live down there after Paul/Muad'Dib rallies them and attacks Arrakeen when the Emperor comes.
• Feudal Future: Like in Part One, Part Two further accentuate's the Dune universe's highly feudalistic nature, with the Emperor making an appearance to try and keep a hold of his power whilst both members of House Harkonnen and survivors of Atreides compete for the imperial throne. The end of Part Two ends with a literal Jihad to extinguish the hold of the other Great Houses after Paul forces a political marriage through Irulan and usurped himself as Emperor of the Known Universe.
• Feuding Families: Even more than in the first movie with the official join of a third side to the conflict between the Harkonnen and Atreides, House Corrino. Paul mentions at some point that his family's enmity with the Harkonnen exists by centuries by the time of the movie, and the Emperor Shaddam confesses to Paul that he arranged the destruction of House Atreides out of envy of Duke Leto's popularity.
• Fictional Constellations: Arrakis as a constellation called "Muad'Dib" that points the Northern Star in the sky.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon:
  • Material remains belonging to House Atreides (including a portrait of Duke Leto) are seen being burned by a soldier using a flamethrower, obviously to Destroy the Evidence. This gets an ironic reversal after the Final Battle when it's a pile of Harkonnen corpses that get this treatment courtesy of Gurney and the Fremen.
  • Feyd-Rautha's troops burning Sietch Tabr's birds and Shishakli.
• Fluffy the Terrible:
  • Badass warrior woman Chani is not proud of her sietch name, "Sihaya," meaning "desert spring."
  • Irulan notes how odd it is for a war leader to be called "Muadib," meaning "kangaroo mouse."
• Foil:
  • Chani and Stilgar in what they represent to Paul. Chani is Paul's Love Interest who tries to keep him grounded. She is very vocal about the danger of believing in the prophesy of Kwisatz Haderach, calling it a story created by the Bene Gesserit to manipulate her people. Stilgar on the other hand, goes from Paul's father figure to follower, constantly clashing with Chani on the subject of the prophesy. By the end of the movie, Chani becomes a Defector from Decadence when Paul takes the role of Kwisatz Haderach, while Stilgar completely succumbs to his fanatism and joins Paul's holy war.
  • Chani and Gurney in their belief in Paul and seeing his ascension. Both are non-believers in the prophecy. However, Gurney fully buys into what can be done if Paul plays into the fantasy, becomes just as fanatical as the Fremen fundamentalists once Paul embraces being the Lisan al Gaib, and stands at Paul's side. Chani, on the other hand, believes that Paul can fulfill the Fremen dream of indpendence without whipping up religious fervor and is disappointed at seeing him give in and departs on her own after leaning that he's no better than the Harkonnen and the Imperium when it comes to playing political games.
• Foreshadowing: Early on, Jessica brutally kills a Harkonnen soldier with a rock to protect Paul. Once she becomes a Reverend Mother, she proves willing to do even darker things to "protect" him, building a cult around his legend and stirring the Fremen into what ultimately becomes raging fanaticism.
• Forever War: Paul attempts to rally the Fremen against the Harkonnens by emphasizing the long-standing enmity between his House Atreides and the Harkonnens, framing the conflict as a centuries-old struggle. His House is familiar with their tactics which could be a huge advantage against them for the Fremen, shall they accept Paul's offer.
• Future Copter: Ornithopters (VTOL aircraft) are used again as air armadas, this time to attack the Fremen.
• Genocide Backfire: After wiping House Atreides off the face of the galaxy in the previous film, the fallout blows up in the faces of all its conspirators here. Their actions set off a chain of events that ultimately leads to the survivors of House Atreides successfully wiping out House Harkonnen in kind, denying the Bene Gesserit a Kwisatz Haderach under their control, and ending House Corrino’s 10,000 year rule over the Imperium.
• Gladiator Games: On Giedi Prime, the Harkonnens have a big arena for such spectacles. For his birthday, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen fights three remaining Atreides prisoners, with his uncle Baron Vladimir, Lady Margot Fenring and a cheering crowd watching. All three prisoners are supposedly drugged to not leave them a chance of killing Feyd, although the Baron withholds the drugs from one fighter as a Secret Test of Character for Feyd.
• God: In his Rousing Speech to the Fremen, Paul acknowledges the existence of God, or at least some sort of supreme divinity. Specifically, he says "the Hand of God be my witness" in reference to a geographical feature of religious significance, visible from Arrakis on the larger of its two moons, as detailed in Part One by Paul's ecology tapes.
• Godzilla Threshold: Paul knows that recruiting the southern fundamentalists would give him the manpower to easily defeat the Harkonnens, but repeatedly refuses to do so because his visions show this will lead to a horrific holy war. It's only after Feyd unleashes a devastating attack on all of the northern sietches and his visions show him the horror of unleashing the atomics that he accepts there is no other path to victory.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Played for Black Comedy when Paul begins the final Fremen test to summon and ride a Sandworm. Paul successfully lures one in with a Thumper... except that by sheer dumb luck, the Sandworm turns out to be 4 times larger than what the Fremen are used to summoning and riding normally.
  • By the end of the movie, Mohiam and the Bene Gesserit succeed in bringing about the Kwisatz Haderach, but he's not under their control and hates their guts for their role in the conspiracy.
• Hand Signals: Continued uses from the first film, by Jessica in the opening scene, and by Mohiam in the climax.
• Harsh Vocals: Another quote in the Sardaukar's language in throat singing opens the film — "Power over Spice is power over all".
• Heir Club for Men: Emperor Shaddam remarks that his daughter Princess Irulan would make a strong empress, but because he has no sons his throne would not pass not to her but rather to the man who marries her.
• Held Gaze: Through the movie, Paul and Chani look at each other shyly a few times until they became an item.
  Chani: What? Stop looking at me like that.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Shishakli stays behind to distract the Harkonnens while the rest of Sietch Tabr's inhabitants flee south. Feyd kills her.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Invoked. When Gurney rejoins Paul, he reveals to him and the Fremen where Duke Leto hid the Atreides' cache of heirloom atomic weapons. When he leads them there, Stilgar criticizes that Gurney and Leto chose to hide them in an easily accessible cave not far from the capital city. Flustered, Gurney reiterates that this was the entire point: no one would bother checking a relatively exposed spot right under their noses. Stilgar says it's still a stupid strategy, to which Gurney smirks "Did you find it?"
• Hoist by His Own Petard: As was set up in the previous film, Paul and Jessica would never have been able to manipulate the Fremen without the Bene Gesserit's Missionaria Protectiva (the religious engineering laid down across primitive planets to benefit the Sisterhood's long game). While discussing the Prophet with Mohiam, Irulan even lampshades the Sisterhood's unwitting role in creating and equipping Muad'Dib.
• Hollywood Tactics:
  • Early in the film a Harkonnen patrol is ambushed by Fremen hiding under the sands. The former quickly activate their suspensors and float to the top of a rocky butte to evade a Thumper-summoned sand worm and gain a commanding view with their lasguns. This itself is a smart move, except the Harkonnen troops then continue to stand upright and silhouetted against the sky instead of lying prone, and so most are quickly picked off with ease by Fremen sharpshooters.
  • When Gurney says that the other Great Houses refuse to recognize Paul's ascension, the latter decides to send the Fremen against their fleet in orbit instead of just using the atomics to blow them all to kingdom come.
    • Atreides/Fremen using the atomics only once, against their greatest enemy, and in a rather underwhelming manner at that, but never even considering to use it against Punch-Clock Villains or other great Houses is not only thoroughly explained in the book, but also a case of Reality Is Unrealistic. Much like the Holy Roman Empire that it’s based on, the Empire has one important peace (rule of combat) that functions as the highest law and is above any emperors, dynasties or political struggles: don’t use atomics directly against other houses.
• Home Field Advantage: The Fremen have lived their entire lives on the harsh desert world of Arrakis. They have intimate knowledge of the desert and have learned how to ride the gigantic Sand Worms. One of their favorite tactics is to hide under the sand and then ambush their target.
• Hope Is Scary: One conversation between Jessica and Paul suggests the latter is beginning to think so, most likely related to his destined war. An overarching theme of the film involves how Hope can be a galvanizing force that can inspire and bring comfort, the ways in which tyrants try to crush it, and how it can by cynically manipulated and even manufactured.
  Jessica: We gave them something to hope for.
  Paul: That's not hope!
• Horse of a Different Color: The giant sand worms are used as transportation by the Fremen.
• Hourglass Plot: First movie ended with the victory of house Harkonnen and house Corrino over house Atreides. This movie ended with House Atreides being the winner as Paul ascends as the new Emperor.
• Hufflepuff House:
  • For all that the Great Houses and the threat of their combined military might are often mentioned, they never appear on screen or actively engage with the plot, until the very last scene of the movie, and that off-screen. This is mostly true in the books as well, however: the only Houses that play significant roles in the plot are the Atreides, Harkonnens, and imperial House Corrino.
  • For all of their importance to the setting, the navigators of the Spacing Guild never make an appearance. This is also true to the books; we first meet a Guild Navigator in the second novel.
• Human Resources: Not only do Fremen harvest the body water from their own deceased, they do the same to the enemies they kill in battle. Harkonnen water is noted to be loaded with too many chemicals to be suitable for consumption, but can be used as stillsuit coolant.
• Humiliation Conga: Rabban can't catch a break. He fails to prevent the spice production from halting due to constant Fremen attacks, tries to confront Muad'Dib himself only to flee with his tail between his legs, and gets demoted by his uncle as a result. Then, when Feyd-Rautha comes to replace him, he finds himself forced to kiss his foot so his life will be spared. Gurney eventually puts him out of his misery in the Final Battle.
• I Kiss Your Foot: After being demoted and replaced by Feyd-Rautha at the direction of Harkonnen operations on Arrakis, Rabban finds himself forced to kiss Feyd's foot so his life will be spared.
• Immediate Sequel: The film begins hours after the first one ended, starting with Stilgar's troop going back to Sietch Tabr while carrying Jamis' corpse and bringing Paul and Jessica there. They ambush Harkonnen soldiers on the way.
• In the Blood: Discussed by Paul. He reveals to his mother that he knows that she is Baron Harkonnen's daughter and he is thus the Baron's grandson. He muses that since they have Harkonnen blood running in their veins, then they must act like Harkonnens in order to triumph over their enemies. And they do so by luring Emperor Shaddam to Arrakis and into their trap.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Feyd's concubines apparently enjoy human flesh.
• Ironic Echo: Feyd-Rautha tells both Lanville and later Paul that they have fought him well at the end of their respective duels. In the former, Feyd says it to console Lanville during the latter's death, while he says it to congratulate Paul after Feyd himself is fatally wounded.
• It's Personal: How Gurney views the war. He's an ex-Harkonnen slave who lost his entire family to their brutality and received a painful inkvine scar on his face as a permanent reminder of his suffering. He has now seen his beloved Duke and all his friends butchered by them, and he is more than ready for some payback.
• Jaw Drop: When seeing Paul managing to ride a gigantic Shai-Hulud, Stilgar is flabbergasted, with his mouth open.
• Jet Pack: The heavy armors Harkonnen soldiers use in the deep desert include repulsors, which seem quite useful in case of incoming sand worms.
• Joke and Receive: In the day of Paul's trial to prove if he can ride a sand worm or not, Shishakli attempts to lighten the mood with a playful jibe, urging him to call a "big one". Paul really ends up unintentionally summoning the largest sandworm witnessed in the films, creating a far more dramatic and dangerous situation than anticipated.
  Stilgar: Whoah! Not that big.
• Kid Amid the Chaos: After Feyd's massacre of Sietch Tabr, a pivotal scene features a young boy, covered with blood and his demeanor reflecting profound shock, emerging from the wreckage of Feyd's brutal attack. His presence embodies the devastating human cost of violence, particularly the vulnerability of the innocent caught in the crossfire.
• Killed Offscreen: After Paul's army breaks down the door to the imperial throne room, a battle line of Sardaukar march into the dust with swords drawn. Paul and company emerge from the dust moments later, having slaughtered the Sardaukar off screen.
• Klingon Promotion: Paul clashes with the Fremen custom which dictates that challenging the leader of a Sietch in mortal combat is the only path to gaining a seat on the council and wielding authority. When confronted with this barbaric rule and pressured to kill the respected leader Stilgar for the right to speak, Paul vehemently rejects this system. He argues passionately against the senseless loss of a valuable warrior like Stilgar for a mere formality and tells the Fremens that he decides how things will be done from now on.
• Kneel Before Zod: Deconstructed as there are no heroes in the end. After the defeat of Feyd Rautha at Paul's hand and and Irulan's acceptance of Paul's hand, everyone except Irulan, Jessica and Chani kneel after the Emperor kneels and kisses the Ducal Signet. This includes Reverend Mother Mohiam.
• La Résistance: In the first movie, the Harkonnen ruthlessly occupy Arrakis/Dune to harvest the Spice, killing or enslaving the native Fremen, and the film opens with the Fremen launching a surprise attack on a Harkonnen convoy. In this movie, Paul starts leading the Fremen to accomplish his revenge against the conspirators.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Feyd-Rautha very much likes it when a Worthy Opponent presents himself to him and doesn't resort to dirty tricks in combat, which is the case against Paul/Muad'Dib at the end. Earlier, during the Harkonnen Gladiator Games he's participating in for his birthday, he's pleased to find out that the final Atreides prisoner who's pitted against him is not drugged and thus presents something of a challenge. He even deactivates his own Deflector Shields for that fight.
• Lighter and Softer: Downplayed. It's just as dark as the first film, but the focus on Paul and Chani's relationship and the increased comedy make it come across as much less brooding and dour than its predecessor. Though in turn, it has a much bleaker ending and ends the story in tragedy.
• Light Is Good: For much of the movie, particularly after being accepted by the Fremen while refusing to become their messiah, Paul wears a hooded white cloak over his stillsuit, which seems to represent his heroic desire to do right by the Fremen without stealing their planet out from under them. After he drinks the Water of Life and accepts his role as the Dark Messiah of the Fremen, he trades the white cloak for a black one, both representing his darker turn and his choice to act like the Harkonen he technically is.
• Love Theme: Paul and Chani have the bitter-sweet Kiss the ring.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The Sardaukar use ornithopters to launch a massive salvo of missiles against the Fremen in the second battle of Arrakis.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • Through the Fremen youth, the film puts forth a more materialist viewpoint that much of the supernatural events and visions (including Paul's clairvoyance) are from everyone's senses being tinged by ingesting so much spice, an established psychoactive compound. To the fundamentalists, the Water of Life is a holy poison meant to test Reverend Mothers and eventually the Lisan al Gaib. To the younger generation, it's lethal "worm piss" (actually bile).
  • Throughout the film, Stilgar and Jessica are fully aware of the detailed Freman prophesies surrounding the Lisan al Gaib, and the latter in particular goes out of her way to put Paul and later Chani into situations enacting them to the letter. Coupled with the actions of the Bene Gesserit in the previous film and the complicated matter of Paul's dreams, it is ultimately left for the viewer to decide the extent to which these outcomes are truly Paul's inevitable destiny, or merely the result of those around him orchestrating events to force them to happen.
• Meaningful Name: Chani's secret name is Sihaya, which translates to "desert spring". She hates it, but it bears meaning in that it was an important step in Paul's ascension that he receive water from a desert spring—one of her tears mixed with the Water of Life—to revive him from his deep coma.
• Meaningful Rename: After leading the Fremen to a victory over a Harkonnen spice patrol, Paul receives his new war-name and sietch name: Muad'Dib Usul. Muad'Dib is the Fremen name for Arrakis' indigenous kangaroo mouse and is also the name of a constellation that the Fremen use to navigate. Usul means "base of the pillar".
• Mirroring Factions: The Harkonnen and the Fremen are shown as being foils to each other in this movie, both being creations of their environments. For instance, both people are societies made of Blood Knights, the Fremen kill quickly to use the bodily fluids of their victims, while the Harkonnen kill to incite subservient fear. Other things they have in common are conspiring to install one of their own as the new emperor, and how fundamentalist they are at their core, the Harkonnen believing in their right to rule over others and launching a war of terror on the natives of Arrakis, while the native Fremen end up starting a holy war under Paul Atreides.
• Missing Steps Plan: Baron Harkonnen claims to intend to leverage his knowledge of the Emperor's complicity in the destruction of House Atreides to put Feyd-Rautha on the Imperial Throne, but never gives specifics on how he would achieve such a thing, and all and the available options are highly dangerous to the Harkonnens themselves.^note The Baron cannot use the information to blackmail the Emperor into marrying Irulan to Feyd-Rautha because the plot being revealed would turn the Great Houses against House Harkonnen just as much as it would against House Corrino. By the same token, the Baron cannot use the information to rally the Great Houses in revolt against House Corrino because the Great Houses would never trust or follow a House that conspired with the Emperor to extinguish one of their own.
• Mordor: Giedi Prime is both this trope and a Polluted Wasteland in Villeneuve's vision. The entire planet is drenched under a Black Sun, which makes the colors entirely in black and white, with H. R. Giger inspired environments vastly different than the other worlds shown in the movie. According to him, he wanted to show what kind of world could create people like the inhabitants of Giedi Prime.
• More Dakka: The Harkonnen gunships have multiple artillery cannons that individually have a high rate of fire. This means one of those ships could dump a constant stream of massive explosive shells on a Fremen Sietch. The shieldless Fremen had no chance against that kind of firepower.
  • Some of the Harkonnen ornithopters have a side gunner who's operating a weapon which acts like a hybrid between a machine gun and a shotgun. It's a rapid fire weapon that deliver clusters of rounds per shot. It was these ornithopters that did the most damage against the Fedaykin as it mulched several of these Fremen fighters with each pass.
• Mythology Gag: See here.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The dying Reverend Mother of Sietch Tabr, Ramallo, has this reaction when Jessica, who will replace her as Reverend Mother, goes through the process of drinking the Water of Life because she discovers too late that Jessica is pregnant.

Tropes N - Z

• Nom de Guerre: Fremen warriors have a tradition of adopting a special "war name" upon becoming a Fedaykin, a fierce Fremen commando. Paul choses to be named Muad'Dib Usul.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The audience (as well as a clearly intimidated Rabban) only hears the Baron murdering two of his attendants in a fit of rage. Even when Rabban opens the door at his uncle's behest, the state of the bodies makes it unclear how he killed them.
  • The conclusion of the battle outside the Emperor's throne room is not seen. Instead, the camera cuts to the huddled courtiers inside listening as the sounds of battle get louder and closer.
  • When Paul and several Fedaykin breach the Emperor's throne room, several Sardaukar walk into the dust cloud to confront the enemy. Nothing is even heard of their deaths, but Paul and his followers walk in moments later, blood upon their blades.
• No, You: Paul opens the duel with Feyd-Rautha by uttering the traditional Fremen curse of "May thy knife chip and shatter". Feyd simply retorts "May thy knife chip and shatter".
• Not in This for Your Revolution:
  • Played With in the case of Gurney Halleck. Gurney fully buys into what can be done if Paul plays into the prophecy, and becomes just as fanatical as the Fremen fundamentalists once Paul embraces being the Lisan al Gaib, and ultimately stands by his side. It's shown, however, that Gurney couldn't care less about the prophecy, with said fanaticism being instead out of loyalty to Paul as Duke of House Atreides and Emperor.
  • Chani fights explicitly in the name of freeing her people and couldn't care less about the prophecy, especially one she knows was engineered/manipulated by the Bene Gesserit.
• Nuclear Option:
  • Gurney's (knowledge) and Paul's (genetic unlock) survival allows Paul to retrieve the atomic weapons of House Atreides. Gurney and (initially) Paul consider razing the Harkonnen presence with them, before Paul decides to use a few as battlefield devices to destroy the rock shield wall that keeps sand worms away from Arrakeen. He also needs the Emperor alive so aiming directly for the landing is off the table.
  • Paul later uses the remaining atomics to threaten other Great House forces to not intervene on Arrakis, lest he fire them on the spice infrastructure and break the galaxy. Even the Emperor who witnessed the first attack is horrified by this proposal.
• Official Couple: Just like in the books, Paul and Chani become an item. Unfortunately, they don't last because Chani becomes disillusioned with Paul's growing darkness, and prefers to depart from everything by the end of the movie.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The scene is of Chani calling a sand worm.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Jessica pulls one at the beginning of the while saving Paul from a Harkonnen soldier. In one shot she was hiding near the wall of a rock, on the opposite direction of the soldiers at a considerable distance, and in the next shot she suddenly attack the soldier from behind. She must be moving really fast.
• Only Sane Man: In the book, Paul ascends to leadership of the Fremen via Asskicking Equals Authority, fights with all his might against being turned into a god-like figure, and is the only one (via internal monologue) who questions the wisdom of starting a holy war to get revenge on the Harkonnens. As none of this is possible due to the film's compressed time frame, Paul instead manipulates the Fremen via their religion, positioning himself as the Lisan al-Gaib in a way his bookbound counterpart explicitly refused to attempt. And, since we don't have an Inner Monologue in this film, there's only one character who sees through the act and starts to despise him for the way he uses the Fremen: Chani.
• Onrushing Army: Both the Fremen and the Sardaukar charge chaotically at each other in the final battle, with little regard for formations or tactics.
• Opening Monologue: Two opening monologues in fact, one done by Princess Irulan, and the other by Paul.
  Princess Irulan: Imperial diary, year 10191, third comment. The battle for Arrakis took everyone by surprise. There were no witnesses. The Harkonnen operation was perpetrated over night without warning or declaration of war. By morning, the Atreides were no more. All died in the dark. And the Emperor said... nothing. Since that night my father has not been the same. Nor have I. His inaction is difficult for me to accept. For I know he loved duke Leto Atreides like a son. But my father has always been guided by the calculus of power. This would not be the first time the Harkonnen have done his dirty work. In the shadows of Arrakis lay many secrets. But the darkest of them all may remain... the end of House Atreides.
• Paul: Sister, father is dead. Shouldn't you go back to the stars, be with him? I'm afraid I won't have enough time to fix things before your coming. This world is beyond cruelty.
• Opening Scroll: The Sardaukar Priest throat-sings the line at the start of the page and the translation is flashed on black before the opening logo. The line is divided as follows: "Power over spice..." followed by "is power over all".
• Our Genies Are Different: Discussed trope. Stilgar warns Paul to be wary of djinns, as they are considered demons of the night in the Fremen culture who try to distract him from his trial of surviving alone in the dessert for one night. It all turns out to be (mostly) a joke, though.
• Overnight Conquest: Princess Irulan narrates how the fall of House Atreides happened over the course of a single night in the first movie, and points out the brutality of the affair.
• Personal Seals: The ducal signet ring of House Atreides. Paul uses it to send a clear message to Emperor Shaddam IV to lure him to Arrakis as well as to invoke the memory of his dead father to the assembly of all the Fremen leaders when becoming their Dark Messiah.
• Planet of Hats: As with the first film, planets tend to have a single biome and a single culture. People from the House of Atreides are all good, stalwart, loyal people. The people of House Harkonnen are all hairless, albino freaks, save for Lady Jessica, who is revealed to be the daughter of the Baron. The Fremen are all desert-dwelling, badass guerilla nomads, though the film expands on some local variations touched on in the book, where Fremen from the south are more religious and have accents when speaking English (standing in for Galach).
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Chani serves as the Audience Surrogate for the film and gives the viewer a different perspective on Paul as a leader and figurehead. In a marked departure from the book, where she fully believed in Paul's role and visions, here she is very sceptical about a messiah coming to liberate the Fremen and grows increasingly disturbed by Paul's quest for power and both his and Jessica's manipulation of her people, fuelling the Southern Fremen's fanaticism for their own purposes. Her anger at Paul choosing to marry Irulan (after he promised to love Chani until his last breath) and storming out of the Residency to return to the desert is a powerful visual reminder of what Paul has sacrificed, whether it be parts of himself or the hopes of others, to achieve his goals.
  • Unlike in the book, Alia Atreides remains unborn by the end of the story, instead communicating telepathically with Jessica from her womb, and only appears as a grown adult via Paul's visions. This is presumably because having live-action scenes depicting an uncannily intelligent toddler would not have matched the film's tone.
  • The fact that Baron Harkonnen is Jessica's father is revealed to Paul in a vision of the Baron very tenderly (and uncharacteristically) playing with her as a baby, most likely as a shorthand that the audience would understand without the need for an accompanying Info Dump.
  • Likewise, in the book, Paul threatens to destroy the spice reserves using a complex chain reaction that is made possible by Arrakis' very specific biosphere^note Water is toxic to sandworms, and upon being drowned, small worms exude the spice poison. If this poison enters a mass of gestating spice, it triggers an explosion that would spread poison to other spice masses, destroying them and quickly killing all sandworms all over the planet. Without sandworms, no more spice. which would take at least 2 minutes of info dump to explain. Here, he simply threatens to nuke them for a similar effect.
• Precision F-Strike: Gurney lets one out when his spice smuggling rig is destroyed by the Fremen.
• The Prophecy: This movie goes to extreme lengths to show that the prophecy of Lisan al-Gaib was simply manufactured by the Bene Genessit, and that Paul is not some savior sent to them by a higher power. Chani is the most vocal about questioning the validity of prophecy.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Paul spends most of the movie scared about what he can see will happen if he rallies the Fundamentalist Fremen to his cause: a holy war that will kill billions. Upon the destruction of the northern Fremen's home, he feels that his hand has been forced, so he proceeds to drink the Water of Life. Upon doing so, with full knowledge of past and future, he fully accepts himself as Lisan al-Gaib and prepares the Fremen for war against the rest of the galaxy, embracing the Knight Templar role as a means to an end.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In the end, Paul obtains revenge against the Harkonnens and the Emperor's betrayal, but the cataclysmic Fremen holy war he desperately wanted to prevent still starts, and Chani leaves him in anger when he demands Irulan's hand in marriage.
• Reaction Shot: After Chani revives, then slaps, Paul before storming out of the Maker Keeper's parlor, Paul turns to give his mother a seething death glare. Her reaction is one of horror, and as she turns her head, the light dims and the surrounding onlookers are gone - only Paul remaining at the rim around the worm pit.
• Recurring Camera Shot: There are many shots of the sun of Arrakis in different phases of the day through the movie.
• Refusal of the Call: Paul repeatedly rejects the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib until it finally becomes obvious to him that there's no other way to succeed in his war against the Harkonnens.
• Rent-a-Zilla: During Paul's trial to ride a sandworm, he inadvertently summons the largest sandworm ever witnessed in the movies.
• The Reveal: Mohiam, not Shaddam, is the true architect of the conspiracy against House Atreides.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The original muad'dib makes an appearance here too, and he is no less cute than in the first movie.
• Rookie Male, Experienced Female: Being a native to the planet of Arrakis, Chani knows how to survive in the desert and offers to teach Paul how to walk in the desert in such a way it won't attract the sandworms.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Look at Irulan's clothing throughout the film. As it progresses, she gets closer and closer to looking like a standard Bene Gesserit. Also, in the climax, she starts off wearing a "cage" over her mouth, opens it up before Paul's little chat, and speaks up to save her father, in a way certainly not really planned by the BG, the Emperor, or maybe even herself.
  • Also note the blue sash Chani wears at times. In the end, she is the only Fremen alive who rejects the prophecy and Paul's ascendency to Emporer as Lisan-al-Gaib.
• Running Gag: Across both Part One and Part Two, two-fold as Jessica is still scolding Paul, this for leaving himself at risk by having his back to the enemy
• Salt the Earth: Paul threatens to use his family's stockpiled atomics on Arrakis' spice fields if the Great Houses attempt to interfere in his seizure of the Imperial throne. Feyd believes he's bluffing, but the Emperor doesn't dare call the bluff and willingly surrenders after Paul kills Feyd in a duel. The Great Houses do call his bluff after this surrender though, causing Paul to follow through on his threat and unleash his holy war in earnest.
• Sand Worm: More of them are seen this time around, and Paul manages to ride the biggest of them all.
• Scenery Porn: Just like the previous movie, Arrakis is shown being as a very beautiful planet despite its harshness. Characters find themselves admiring and discussing its beauty several times. Even Giedi Prime is impressive to see despite being a dystopian Polluted Wasteland.
• Screw Destiny: No, not the prophecy, but Paul doesn't want to fight Stilgar for leadership of Sietch Tabr, as is tradition for Fremen leaders. He manages to find a loophole by using his new prescience to reveal the history of some of the other sietch leaders, then asserts his claim to their loyalty as the rightful Duke of Arrakis and the Lisan al-Gaib, not as the naib of Sietch Tabr.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: When Fremen tribes gather, only naibs are allowed to speak. Because of this, Stilgar urges Paul to kill him to become leader of Sietch Tabr and gain the right. However, Paul refuses to kill his friend and, instead, claims the role of Lisan al-Gaib and uses his prescience and the Voice to silence the gathered Fremen and make them understand that they're going to do things his way from now on.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • They duck and cover to avoid boulders thrown at them by the atomic attack that blows a mountain off the map, then recover - only to see three sandworms and two armies charging them. You bet the Sardaukar will run for their lives.
  • Chani storms out of the throne room in anger after Irulan offers Paul her hand in marriage to give him ascension to the throne (Contrasting the book's depiction.)
• Sea of Sand: When Paul sits with Chani and contemplates the desert, which extends up to the horizon, he tells her about his birth planet of Caladan (both the sea and the constant rain) and to imagine the sands as water, and if one were to dive into it they'd never reach the bottom. Chani has trouble even imagining that much water, and even the concept of "swimming" is utterly foreign to her, having lived all her life on Arrakis. This is a Mythology Gag to Paul's prescient dreams of Chani before meeting her in person, where in the book - but left out of Part One - she keeps asking him about "the waters of his homeworld".
• Secret Test of Character: Baron Harkonnen withholds the stupefying drugs from one of Feyd's opponents in the arena without telling him to see how he'll handle it. The baron even mutters, "Show me who you are," as he watches Feyd react. Feyd embraces the challenge and overcomes it, to the baron's satisfaction.
• Secret Weapon: Gurney reveals to Paul the huge stash of atomic warheads belonging to the Atreides. Of course, they use some to tear down the shield wall when the Final Battle begins.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • As in the book, Shaddam's conspiracy to eliminate House Atreides as a potential threat to his reign backfires and instead creates his greatest enemy.
  • The Bene Gesseritt aided Shaddam because they felt House Atreides was too hard to control and needed removed before it upset their plan. This directly led to Paul becoming the Kwisatz Haderach and completely ruining the Bene Gesseritt's plans.
  • Likewise, Paul's attempts to avoid the Holy War he's seen in his vision only end up unleashing it in the end.
• Sequel Hook: The movie's final act ends with the Fremen embarking to attack the other Great Houses, Jessica declaring that the holy war has just begun and Chani abandoning Paul.
• Sex Slave: Is never discussed, but is heavily implied that the female servants shown around Feyd and Vladimir are barely more than sex slaves. They are usually dressed in body fit leather or see-through gowns.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: After Paul successfully rides a grandfather sand worm, the following scene depicts him and Chani together like this.
• Shout-Out: A rather nice one in the direction of David Lynch: After Baron Vladimir's death, his corpse is left in the desert. A close-up shows insects crawling into his ear - strongly reminiscent of an early scene in Blue Velvet
• Shrine to the Fallen: Two straight instances.
  • Paul has a brief vision of people worshipping a shrine with a portrait of his father, and a skull that is implied to be the late duke's.
  • The Fremen's underground water storage basins, crucial for their survival on Arrakis, also serve a secondary function. These basins become a place for the Fremen to mourn their dead, since they take their water and add it to the basin, but get rid of the body.
• Shutting Up Now: When Chani advises Paul on how to walk on the sand so not to attract the worms, he responds that that's now how the training videos he watched on Caladan had instructed, before realizing he sounds silly and asking her to carry on.
• Signature Style: A minor plot point. While discussing reports of the Fremen Prophet with Mohiam, Irulan recognizes the signs of the Bene Gesserit religious engineering (the Missionaria Protectiva, which, as the first film established, was seeded on various primitive planets to benefit the Sisterhood's long game). Along with the Prophet's unusual Fremen name (Muad'dib AKA "Kangaroo Mouse"), this is how Irulan deduces Paul may still be alive (as the inference is that only someone connected to the Sisterhood would know how to access and activate that religious engineering — someone like, say, the son of a Bene Gesserit concubine everyone believed killed in the Harkonnen attack).
• Single-Biome Planet: As with the first film, Caladan is characterized as a lush, oceanic planet, while Arrakis is entirely desert. What we see of Giedi Prime is all heavily industrialized and colorless, with a "black sun."
• Single Tear: Paul, Chani and Jessica shed single tears over the course of the film. In the case of Jessica, it's in the water reservoir of Sietch Tabr and she's told not to waste water crying for others. As for Chani, it's meaningfully used to help revive Paul.
• Slashed Throat: Feyd-Rautha slashes the throat of some of his servants whenever he feels like it.
• Stock Sound Effects: The fully black clad handlers of the Harkonnen arena who are there to make sure Feyd-Rautha's life is not threatened during his birthday gladiator game emit the same sounds as the Clickers from The Last of Us.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Much like the duel with Jamis in the previous film, the buildup to Paul's duel with Feyd is accompanied with an ominous ambience. This is cut off when Feyd makes the first strike, and the majority of their fight is not accompanied by any music.
• Supporting Protagonist: The film departs from the book in the way it centers its story. [[spoiler:In the books, Paul is the first Narrator in the Shifting POV and is unquestionably the heart of the story. But the first film both opens and closes with Chani's voice, the second film has the relationship between Paul and Chani — the directions he's pulled in, becoming a Manipulative Bastard and Knight Templar or staying honorable and kind — be its central dramatic tension, and it closes with a shot of her preparing to strike out on her own, heartbroken at what her Usul has become. As if to underline this, one of the second film's posters — the one used on The Other Wiki — shows Paul and Chani walking towards the camera, but with Chani in front of and slightly obscuring Paul. He may be the protagonist, but it's Chani's story.)
• Talking to Themself: After taking the water of life, Jessica parodies through talking telepathically with an awakened Alia who is still within her womb.
• Terraform: The Fremen want to turn their desert planet into a "green paradise". Paul sees a vision of his grown sister near an ocean, implying that it is a possibility.
• There Are No Coincidences: During Jessica's ritual to become a Reverend Mother, the Southern Fremen and Northern Fremen start to fight among themselves about the validity of the prophecy. Stilgar points out to Chani and her people that the mother of Lisan al-Ghaib survived the poison just like it was written in their scriptures, but Chani contradicts him and reminds everyone that the Bene Gesserit wrote the prophecy in the first place.
• Title Drop: Paul reveals the original Fremen name for Arrakis: Dune.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • In the previous movie, Gurney Halleck was last seen charging into battle. The trailers show him still alive and looking even more grizzled after an indeterminate amount of time.
  • The shot where Paul is watching a huge explosion from afar standing on a dune comes from the movie's climax. In context, it's in the scene where he nukes a part of the mountain surrounding Arrakeen to create a shortcut right before the final battle.
  • Ironically, one of the biggest hidden secrets of the film was featured in the trailer, but ended up Hidden in Plain Sight. The trailer features several lines of dialogue from Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia, but her voice sounds so similar to the voice of Rebecca Ferguson as Jessica that nobody picked up on it.
  • One of the promotional clips of the film that was released for the movie showed the beginning of the duel between Paul and Feyd, aka the action climax of the whole film.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: The Great Houses are somehow able to mobilize their military forces to travel from across the entire known galaxy to orbit over Arrakis in the time it took for the Emperor to make planetfall, deploy his Sardaukar, and be attacked and utterly defeated by Paul and his Fremen armies, which the movie implies is a day or two, at the most. To be fair, Guild Navigators (the main reason Spice is harvested) allow instant space travels by folding space, though the Villeneuve films never detail that part of the Dune universe.
• Uncertain Doom: While Gurney and other surviving members of House Atreides are shown in the film, their mentat Thufir Hawat is completely absent. His fate in the original book, where he was forced to serve the Harkonnens, is not shown or mentioned, making it unclear whether he even survived the fall of House Atreides in this adaptation.
• Underground City: Sietch Tiabr has its base deep underground, hiding not only the people, but also millions of decaliters of water.
• Unseen No More: After only being mentioned in the first film, Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV appears in person.
• Untrusting Community: The northern Fremens don't trust at first Paul and Jessica, suspecting them of being enemy spies. Stilgar has to pledge his life for them to convince the Fremen council to let them stay. Eventually, the Fremen warm up to Paul, partially because he winds up fulfilling the prophecy and partially because he proves himself several times on Spice Harvester raids.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Upon talking about their plans to fanaticize the Fremen to go fully to war against the Harkonnens, Jessica tells Paul that his late father didn't believe in revenge. Paul, on the other hand, does believe in revenge.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Jessica vomits after seeing the Fremen harvesting water from the dead Harkonnen soldiers during the film first battle's aftermath. The camera cuts to Stilgar, who is chiding her for wasting her own water. That she's pregnant probably doesn't help.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: During Rabban's failed aerial pursuit of the Fremen rebels, one of his men vomits a stream of white liquid.
• War Comes Home: The war between the Harkonnens and the Fremen takes a way more dramatic turn when Feyd-Rautha decides to simply bombard the sietches to oblivion.
• The War Has Just Begun: While the Harkonnens are definitively defeated, and Paul ascends the throne, the Great Houses refuse to acknowledge this, and Paul is left with little choice but to enforce his will upon the rest of the Imperium, kicking off the holy war he was otherwise fighting to avoid. Indeed, Jessica states as much to Alia, that the war is on.
• Warm Place, Warm Lighting: Most of the scenes taking place on Arrakis have a brown-colored palette or an orange hue, naturally as they take place on a desert planet where there's Spice in the air. Notably, this is greatly toned down for a more balanced 'temperate' color scheme during Paul's vision of a grown Alia walking down a dune towards the sea. Arrakis' brown color motifs are also strongly contrasted with the Deliberately Monochrome of Giedi Prime.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The Sandworms find water to be highly toxic. Immersing a young sandworm into a pool of water will kill it in seconds and then the Water of Life can be extracted from it.
• We Will Use Lasers in the Future: The Fedaykin commandoes show a marked preference for Lasguns. Understandable, since the man-portable explosives and rocket launchers does only minor damage to vehicles other than an unshielded ornithopter while a single Lasgun beam can down carry-all or harvester (the Fedaykin blowing up their first with 4 Lasguns was overkill, later they used only a shot or two) and those Lasguns also had a pretty good rate of fire. Harkonnen soldiers and a number of Fedaykin also used a curious weapon which was a rifle with some device on its muzzle. It shot a thin weak, white beam of light but it's ambiguous what it is - Lasguns have a incandescent blue beam and they make a traditional zapping noise. Meanwhile these rifles sounded like a silenced gun and the damage they caused was minimal compared to a Lasgun (perhaps they were rifle equivalent to the Maula Pistol and the light was a tracer round).
• Wham Line: At the end, after Paul ascends the throne and the Great Houses refuse to acknowledge his rule. He starts the holy war he wanted so much to avoid with one simple, chilling phrase:
  Paul: Lead them to paradise.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: After Paul's forces capture the entire imperial court, Paul orders all of the Sardaukar guards to be killed and everyone else taken captive.
• Watching the Sunset: Paul and Chani admire the beauty of Arrakis together, and Chani describes to Paul how beautiful Arrakis can become when the sun sets down. They also kiss during this scene.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: By the end of the movie, Paul Atreides achieves his initial goals – vengeance for his father, justice for House Atreides, installing himself as the new Emperor, and the liberation of the Fremen. However, his victory comes at a devastating cost. He loses Chani, his friends turned into zealous followers, grapples with the burden of prophecy, and faces widespread political resistance from the other Great Houses. Faced with this bleak situation, he initiates a potentially catastrophic holy war, blurring the lines between securing peace and unleashing further chaos.
• The Worf Effect: Feyd Rautha's strength is established when he faces a veteran Atreides soldier in a fair fight and demolishes him.
• Worthy Opponent: Feyd compliments Lanville for putting up a good fight after stabbing him in the arena. At the end of the film he gives Paul the same compliment after Paul bests him.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Try as he might, Paul cannot stop the nightmare vision he had back in Part One, despite everything he does: his dedication to trying to stay in the North to avoid going to the South and giving into the Cult that his mother has whipped up ends in failure after the Harkonnens under Feyd-Rautha wiping out countless Fremen strongholds and forcing him to evacuate to the South lest they all be exterminated. His attempt to deny his prophethood is seen as humility, which the Lisan al-Gaib is written to be as.. Finally, in the timeline where Jamis became his mentor, Jamis tells that Paul — and via Spice vision, our Paul — to go to the South. It's implied in every other timeline, Paul can't help but be Lisan al-Gaib. In the end, Paul gives in, coldly accepts that he'll inevitably kills billions of people, and personally orders the Jihad. invoked
• You Have Failed Me: The Baron strips Rabban of his governorship after he fails to defeat Muad'Dib and gives it to Feyd-Rautha, coldly telling his nephew that if he fails the family again, it'll be the last time. He's then on the wrong end of the trope when the Emperor arrives on Arrakis; one of the Sardaukar cuts him loose from his suspensor device and leaves him floundering helplessly on the floor while Shaddam angrily tears into him for his failures.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Chani teasingly tells Paul that he fought well against the Harkonnen soldiers for someone who just woke from sleep.

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"He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it."

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