Dune: Part Two and the Death of Media Literacy

How convenient that Timothy Chalamet is defending his own movie. Good luck next time Tim, you can't trick us.

I can't believe Paul had to break the fourth wall and tell this to the audience explicitly

Frank Herbert: "Colonialism, imperialism, racism, and savior narratives are bad" Audience: "Dune is problematic because colonialism, imperialism, racism, and savior narratives are bad"

Zendaya literally says "THESE PROPHECIES ARE HOW THEY ENSLAVE US" in the movie lol wtf

you look like muad'dib

Villeneuve even went out of his way to make changes from the book to make sure people didn't miss the point. If they're STILL not getting it then eventually you gotta just say it's on them.

I can't wait until Dune: Messiah comes out and all the Dune Normies react exactly how readers reacted when Herbert released the book in the 1960s.

Villeneuve literally rewrote Chani to spell out to the audience that what Paul was doing was bad.

If Muad-Dib himself is telling me that this movie is critizing the savior complex i must agree.

are people seriously saying it's promoting white saviour narrative? wow...I love how people take a look at something and then just spin their own tails inside their head to satisfy their own bias instead of actually looking at what they are seeing. pretty much exactly what dune warns against

You look like if Timothee Chalamet and Cillian Murphy had a baby

"Art is about showing, not telling." The entire catalogue of modern serialized shounen anime sweats profusely in the background.

The real takeaway from Dune 2 is that space fascism is cool as fuck, but don't OD on worm piss 👍

The lisan-al-gaib is too humble to admit he is the savior!

frank herbert was subtle and it went over peoples heads. Denis wasn’t subtle at all and we still have people like Ben Shapiro saying that Dune is pro-life and pro-capitalism

Modern audiences need a shallow monologue to explain the plot, or a new tiktok trend or dance sequence. (Barbie is not totally bad, but is the ultimate example)

Aint no way they got Paul himself defending this movie

😂 _Saviour?_ Paul is about as much of a saviour as that one Austrian painter.

You'd think so... But in every medium where the protagonist is bad, or is supposed to serve as a cautionary tale, they end up unironically admired by fans that do not realise that was the point Like American Psycho, or Fight Club, or Joker. You can't be subtle with this and expect people to interpret text beyond its face value.

The censorship scanner is going to be wild on this, too many trigger words! XD

Absolutely wild that people aren't understanding this. *SPOILER* Frankly, the cautionary aspect felt almost obvious when Paul went to interrupt the Fremen prayer to tell them that he was Muad'dib, like the environment alone of that scene should have told the audience that he was about to do some bad shit. Another part I think most people should note is how hype the Battle of Arrakis *was*. At the point where they ride the sandworms into battle I was hyped as fuck for the Fremen, only to realize that, despite knowing exactly how it symbolizes how terrible it is for starting a chain of events which would lead to the Jihad, it stirred those emotions in me anyway. Made me think a lot.

I think Dune is more a narrative of Paul's agency being subsumed by the plans of those who have come before him as he allows himself to become what he was meant to be, and then the consequences of what happens when a legend becomes more powerful than those who created it.

"The only way for movies and shows to have ... anti-savior themes is to show the savior narrative and to show the negative outcomes of it. Without depicting the savior narrative, you cannot effectively communicate the message that saviorism is bad." ... exactly. And the failure to understand this runs much deeper in society than just with the issue of media literacy. It's the reason why we're trying to erase any hint of anything bad in history. It's the whole impetus behind cancel culture. It's why statues are torn down and places renamed because they represent the namesake of someone who at one time owned slaves. We can't just learn from our mistakes (and God forbid we accept anyone's apology for said mistakes, and extend forgiveness); no, we have to erase the fact that they ever existed. And the tragic irony of it is this erasure will ultimately pave the way for those mistakes to be made again in the future, because we will forget our past.

Timothée Chalamet from Walmart 💀

It's very plainly foreshadowed in both movies that Paul's actions are going to have negative repercussions. He didn't have much choice, but still its referenced several times how many people are going to die if he follows his current path.

He says Savoirism is bad! He is too humble to say he is the savoir: even more reason that he is! AS WRITTEN!

Haven't watched because clearly this guy's just mad he wasn't casted as Paul Atreides.

This isn't explicitly stated in the movie, so you'd have to read the books to know this, but: Paul can see all possible futures, and he specifically chose the one that lead to the jihad (called 'Holy War' in the movie) because if he didn't, humanity would go extinct. So, yes, he does bad stuff, but it literally saves humanity from extinction in the end. This means that, whether you like it or not, Paul is actually saving humanity. Basically, the ends justify the means. Paul Herbert did mean it as a cautionary tale, but that doesn't mean it isn't multifaceted. Paul literally saves humanity. Google it.

I get what you're saying, but Dennis genuinely gets the source material and I trust his plans with Messiah to pull the rug on the audience that isn't understanding. All his interviews have told me he does not view Paul as a good guy and plans to be faithful to Herbert's messages.

As it was written! He defends and leads the holy war against the nonbelievers! LISAN AL GAIB!!!

I've seen most of your videos and I gotta say, you're criminally underrated. You're very well-spoken, levelheaded, intelligent, and make good points. Yet you don't really get the praise you deserve, and I don't get that. As for the video, I agree with you here. Dumb people say that they want good stories that treat them with intelligence, but when they get that, they complain that it addresses subjects that make them uncomfortable. And, to quote Family Guy, anything that makes them uncomfortable in the current year should be illegal! Yeah, we (and the creators of the movie, for that matter) shouldn't take any of these keyboard-toting fraudfests seriously.

I love how something that is completely factual or at the very least very logical is considered controversial

People not understanding the point of Dune was why Frank Herbert had to keep adding to the saga. So hopefully the same thing happens today, forcing them to keep make these films until all 6 books are adapted.

There's almost no critical response that takes stock of how close the war violence is to the images and sounds of the US military bombing Mideast countries we've been drenched in for decades. I think it's quite brave of Villaneuve.

Thank you for putting my (and many others I'm sure) thoughts into words!

This has been one of the most frustrating trends to witness in the last few years of film discourse. The worst part is that the people who think like that are also never emotionally mature enough to let themselves be proven wrong

The moment a movie is out it belongs to the viewers, I may not want to shout my opinion on social media all the time but I bought the ticket and I say the movie is great. Thanks for voicing your side Thimotheé.

Am i tripping or was the thumbnail for this video just bro Mewing💀💀

Seeing everything through the "modern" lenses is really a step back.

"Art is about showing not telling" Togashi : "Let me prove your wrong"

I'm glad this video was concise and to the point, but effective art is often controversial in its time. I'm pretty sure Dune 3 will be coming out in a couple years and when it does, it'll most likely emphasize the anti-savior narrative and make it more obvious for the normies. That being said, the Dune series is about way more than just a cautionary tale. In Villeneuve's particular interpretation of the story, he has set it up as the main plot point, but down the line in the series of books, the story shows us that Dune was never a simple 'Good' versus 'Evil' story. (Check out 'God Emperor of Dune', in particular.) Frank Herbert was one of the premiere science fiction writers of his time. He was more aware of tropes than even the most 'woke' normies are nowadays. Everything I've ever read by him was way too creative to fit into a box and that's the way he liked it.

lol the literal first scene of Dune: Part One is Chani narrating ‘who will be our next oppressor?’ before cutting to a shot of Paul

Is this guy the actor that plays Pol?

Huh? This is a trend? We haven't seen "white savior" in years. But when it finally comes back, it's fantastic and everyone is talking about it.

Those reactions to Dune 2 remind me so much of Starship Troopers.

I can't wait for part 3, space jihad is going to be epic

I half disagree. In this very specific case, I love how Denis has clearly stated the dangers of following Paul, but there have been cases were "cautionary tales" have totally backfired: Scarface, GoodFellas, The Wolf of Wall Street.

preach!

00:59 YES !!!! F*****NG THANK YOU !!! I've been trying to tell people this for a while in regards to video game depictions 😅

As a long-time Dune fan, I pretty much agree with everything you said. It is disappointing to see people still misreading the story as a "savior" narrative, because while watching it in cinema I did at times wonder whether they didn't put the cautionary tale too much on the nose, as the southern Fremen's fanaticism seemed somewhat comical at times. I believe the ultimate problem with Dune in any medium is that you cannot really critique society's trust in charismatic leaders without making them... well, charismatic. Also, in "Blockbuster" movies like Dune it is the norm that good triumphs over evil and audiences may to a degree expect that whoever wins in a fictional conflict will have won because they were on the "right side". It is still kinda sad that Dune's message remains as important now as it was 60 years ago.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one.

Timothee I thought your channel was called moddedcontroller360

Same thing happened with Attack on Titan, Berserk, and pretty much every other story with morally gray characters and dark themes.

wait you said this perfectly

From the thumbnail (facial structure), I thought he was going to do "I am Paul Atreides, yo" *Vine Boom*

"We're making a Holocaust movie, and we decided to make a bold new decision to not have the Holocaust take place.

LISAN AL GAIB HAS SPOKEN

Its cool more people are seeing this with pt 2. I already knew there was an issue when they gender and race swapped Kynes. Theres an interview with the author where he explicitly states Kynes in his totality and the way his death is written is a critique on the sctientistic side of the white (I believe he uses the term "western man") saviour complex. That if you just collect enough data and figure things out in the rationalistic western way (Kynes is directly employed by the Empire) then you can save everyone. And Kynes death is meant to be this ironic twist of fate where he knows exactly what the ecosystem is going to do with him as he dies in the desert. The point of that subtext is to remind the "western man" that even if he takes this detached "objective" view of a system, he will forget hes still a part of it, and will be swallowed up.

In the movie Paul is depicted as a super cool character doing so much cool stuffs (similar to Tony Montana, another character that, despite of his actions and ending, is not so much remembered as a monster but as a “cool gangster”). No matter how much it is said that Dune (the book or the movie) is a cautionary tale, the framing is telling otherwise, and I think the first one who realized it was George Lucas. Star Wars showed the real nature of Dune, a simple, heroic tale disguised as complex and subversive.

I saw somebody online complainimg that the later books no longer examine Fremen ways of life and just show imperial machinations.... Yeah that was the point, Paul's war essentially gets Arrakis put into the imperial machine and their way of life was destroyed.

Everyone has a voice and an audience on the internet and that brings good and bad things

I agree man, i think you're def preaching to the choir

The movie was a vanilla version of what happened in the book to make this exceedingly clear and people still missed it

Waaa waaa waa. Some people will cry about anything

Honestly the kids saying "Dune shouldn't show the white savior trope" are at least better than the people who somehow walked out of the film saying they were ride-or-die for Muad'dib.

I think they were worried that people wouldn't get the message so they made these themes a lot less subtle in the movie than in the book. Chani might as well have looked directly at the camera and said "Paul becoming a prophet will have negative consequences not just for the Fremen but for the whole of the galaxy", but even then people still didn't catch on lol

I hate all the people (mostly conservatives) who think that Chani is a bad character because she goes against Paul at the end. Like she literally is the mouthpiece for the theme. Can’t wait until Dune: Messiah comes out and they all say it’s “gone woke” because apparently killing 61 billion people is bad and Paul is not the hero.

Scuffed Chalemet.

Love how "Media Literacy" and "Death of Media Literacy" are commonplace terms now. I do agree with the message of the video though.

The problem isn't that Savorism is in the movie but the movie "Tells" the audience as you say and not "Shows" as the tone of the book does. The movie memes itself by framing Stilgar as a lunatic fanatic when a good portion of his tribe, including Chani his biggest follower in the book, mock him. They also warp Jessica's character into a scheming paranoid crone when she is very much a head priestess as her heavily earned title is shown in the novel narrative aswell. She becomes a believer very early on and everything else truly feels like it's fueled by the pure epic momentum of what is happening. Paul does become a living deity after all. This perception is deeply taunted and dampened by the film which I don't think tells the same story. Or atleast the true epic impact is lost as it feels like an atheist commentary on this foundational work of science fiction.

Not to mention DUNE IS COOL NOW?!!?!?! Most of these people watching it and calling it “sunning” and “perfect” complained about the first one being poorly paced, and nerdy. Most of the people on the internet commenting “Muad’Dib” on everything haven’t even read the books. I hate to gate keep but Dune is being popularized and makes real fans hard to find. I’ve read the books before they were cool and I’m glad so many people are being exposed to a truly amazing story but truthfully, I preferred it when it was niche and nobody knew what I was talking about.

-> Ey yo! Why do you look like Paul, gangy?

beautiful curls bro DROP THE ROUTINE

🤦‍♂️ Tell me you didn't watch the movie without telling me you didn't watch the movie. Pointless outrage culture is so dumb sometimes that it negatively affects genuinely valid outrage. Is anyone even mentioning how great it is that Zendaya is in this over some red head like the book? Is anyone mentioning how the bleach greedy white imperialist is the villain? Clown take. It's such a pretentious conclusion, but maybe Dune is just too smart for most people.

Is it me or do you look like a cross between Timothy Chalamet and a young Jeff Goldblum? Anyway, great take on the matter!

Did not know Lisan Al Gaib had a youtube channel. It is written

There's a weird trend nowadays where a considerable portion of people can't seem to understand the critical point: Depiction=/=endorsement

The savior critique fits to the dune movie perfectly, bc the movie removed most of the story’s depth.

How nice of paul atriedes to be humble and admit his flaws

I've not yet encountered a criticism of Dune: Part 2 that I'd describe as mentally competent. People are so used to dumbed down, mind-numbing superhero movies that they can't follow a story that requires some thought. Another criticism I've seen is that Walken made the emperor seem weak and powerless. People are imbeciles. The emperor isn't *supposed* to seem powerful and scary. That's kind of the point. He's just a man who's been corrupted by power, not some supervillain Sith Lord.

People are criticizing the movie for a point that it doesn’t even make???

Blud thinks he's timothee 💀

The problem with media literacy is on both ends of the equation. The new Dune movies are actually a good example of this because the production studio appears to willfully ignore the heavy Jungian influences and themes of the story in favour of arbitrary gender and race swapping characters

I just finished ATLA live action... they just moved the sexism from a character to a patriarchal figure and the entire community... Honestly, with how much screentime... I actually find the live action did it right within its limited format.

The point is made as explicitly as you can make it without breaking the 4th wall. How can people not understand it? They'll be in for a rude awakening come Dune Messiah

This isn’t a new problem, Frank Herbert literally wrote Dune Messiah because people didn’t understand that Dune was a critique of the chosen one story

he is wise in the ways of media literacy. as written

I've never read the books, only watched the two movies, and honestly it was pretty clear to me that the story doesn't portray Paul becoming a "savior" as a good thing.

Your hair is so gorgeous..😍 I'll figure your opinion out later, cos I still study English..😅

Little brother using that lisan al gaib filter

The faith critique is a double edged sword too. Yes, it is important to be wary of religious zeal, and blind faith. But faith can be a very powerful tool in mobilizing the apathetic towards revolutionary change. (Cough cough*, when there has been 10,000 years of guild domination on a single resource, from one single planet that dictates the fate of the universe.)

I usually think the discourse around media literacy is pretentious and profoundly asinine,but you actually made a fucking so good job...

I don't think media literacy is dead, I just think a lot of people are used to seeing film as passive entertainment instead of art or entertainment art so they refuse to engage with it on any level beyond surface appearance. Look how people reacted to Kubrick's films to see how many people missed the very obvious points of those at the time.

We should see the good and bad of leaders

This is a slightly older example, but after Starship Troopers released in the late 90s, people bashed it for promoting fascism, even though it’s pretty clearly a movie trying to show how ridiculous and bad fascism is

HE IS THE LISAN AL-GAIB! MATT'DIB, SHOW US THE WAY AND LEAD US TO PARADISE!!!

Who watched the movie and thought Paul's actions towards the end were positive. Even the man himself from earlier in the movie was telling us shit's gonna be fucked.

Exactly why Dune Messiah exist People prefer to believe than accept.

Dude needs a pop filter bc he's spittin facts

He realised he was wrong, repented and came to our world to show why saviours are bad, what an honorable act by Paul