Dune Part Two: Of How A Leader Dreams
A blazing sun dawns on inviting earthly hues set to the rhythmic bellows of Han Zimmer's thumping score echoing across an arid sea of spice and sandstorms. In this vast emptiness, fate will turn dreamers to leaders, and more dangerously, leaders to dreamers.
Dune: Part One charted a betrayal that led to House Atreides’ downfall, with protagonist Paul Atreides and his mother surviving a gruesome massacre orchestrated by the Harkonnens over spice control on the planet Arrakis. By the end of Part One, Paul embodies the convergence of biblical and philosophical ideas of what a true prophetic leader should be, setting his sights on undertaking a higher cause to lead the native Fremen of Dune towards their freedom against the Harkonnens.
Dune: Part Two dismantles these optimistic philosophies by gradually scraping off the veneer that hides the dark truth of ascent to power. In fact, the film plots a simple but no less consequential trajectory of faith to power: Innocent faith in hopes of fate becoming real, and that fate grants almost irrevocable power to those who are the fated.
The Fremen have a sycophantic faith in the hope of a prophecy that would see them be saved by a fated messiah. This faith locks Paul into a path to absolute power. And in history’s chronic lessons, it’s biggest one is that power corrupts, even unintentionally.
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A power that dreams, might be a nightmare for those who follow.
For Paul does not deliberately want to be an evil dictator, nor a benevolent messiah. He is simply a man who dreamt of using power as a conduit to exact a personal vengeance on the Harkonnens that wiped out his family. Just as a gun is only harmful when someone pulls its trigger, maybe power in itself doesn’t corrupt, but the purpose that controls that power.
But with that power always comes greater ambition, to dream upon higher callings far beyond the initial purpose that gained someone that power in the first place.
And so as messiahs wield foreboding omens unto their path of personal retribution in Part Two, bound in fate are the followers whose blind faith in these messiahs lead them into a cycle of poisonous prophecies and distorted destinies.
A power that dreams, might be a nightmare for those who follow.