“Dune” lives on the weird. Denis Villeneuve’s “Part One” came out in 2021 and while it was great, it left a lot on the table. If that first part was all the foundation, then the “second part” is all the restoration. Not just in action I mean. If anything, “Part Two” explores its conflicting worlds, politics and philosophies in greater depth than the first. The action is good too, but for “Dune” to work as a transition it must find places where the storyteller can’t come back from and take risks that threaten the entire project. Anything less is not an adaptation of “Dune”. This second film takes those risks and brings them down. It’s a good and sometimes disturbing science fiction experience. You can watch Dune: Part Two Soap2day at HD quality without any subscription charges.
After “Dune: Part One,” Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, have survived the massacre of family and army by rival House Harkonnen. The Harkonnens took over the planet, and it’s the only place Spice can be found. Spice is a psychological essential for interstellar travel, but it can also make you loopy and see you past time in high enough doses assuming you survive it.
Native Fremen kidnaped Paul and Jessica, many of whom see Paul as a messiah destined to help take back the planet. These beliefs were instilled by the Bene Gesserit, a religious order that changed the politics of the universe, but if you remember from the first movie Jessica jumped the gun a generation before Paul, making her and that religious order is contradictory.
That’s a lot of names and details overshadowed by the first film, but like I said, that film is pretty much all foundational work. I’m not saying you have to watch it to understand “part two”. In fiction, medieval political intrigue is something we have some of the best grounding for as an audience. All you have to do is send it into space. That said, the specifics – both the story and the metaphor – are much stronger if you’ve seen “Part One” or read the novel. That’s especially true in the sense of a religious conspiracy based on colonialism and holy war and son-mother conflict. I’ll get into that in a minute.
“Dune” is unique as an adaptation because it magnifies everything. Sure, the wilderness of this entire planet is vast, political intrigue extends across the universe, and buildings and ships are ancient a cruelty that seems infinite compared to individual human beings. But every movie has a big enough budget to can do things like so big It feels.
“Dune” makes the concepts feel bigger. It creates a fantasy universe whose battle you couldn’t even begin to imagine an empire run by people who can predict the future. This evil military society actually exists in black and white, a lawn that can be crossed Hitching aboard tiny only large mosquitoes taller than skyscrapers.