News culture This difference between Dune 2 and the novel causes controversy: not everyone likes Denis Villeneuve’s decision
Adaptations of novels into films are always complicated and, according to fans, Dune 2 is not without all its flaws. With the rewriting of Denis Villeneuve, an important figure changes radically.
Dune 2which is still breaking records in our cinemas, is primarily an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Frank Herbert. Therefore, cuts were made when writing the script, as it is almost impossible to accurately transcribe every line from the books. But here we are: Some changes may not please early fans, and Dune 2 is no exception to the rule. This recast has drastically changed the journey of a key character and fans are starting to get a little annoyed.
Almost two years
If you don’t know the universe of Dune or haven’t seen the film yet, you should know that Alia Atreides, the little sister of the hero Paul, is one of the most important characters in the saga. In the novels, she is introduced as a little girl living among the Fremen, the people of the desert planet Arrakis. However, the film crews decided to portray her as a fetus in the womb of Jessica, her mother. In fact, director Denis Villeneuve and his screenwriter were able to skip the two years she spent adjusting to life on Arrakis and go straight to the film’s main themes. This change was important to them, they explained in an interview with Inverse:
That was one of the things we had to fix when we wrote the first Dune film.
However, they had another choice: to draw an ellipse between the first and second films and thus give birth to their little sister outside of the camera. However, the viewer would have been somewhat lost and knowledge of Fremen culture would have been less present.
From novel to cinema, a complicated task
The film adaptation of a book or romantic saga has always been a subject of debate. It allows a somewhat unknown work to be presented to a wider audience, but also requires passages to be shortened. Writing a page that takes ten minutes can require months of filming and a budget of millions of dollars