So, I’m not going to watch Dune? It seems like boring sci-fi to me, although I do enjoy Timothee Chalamet and Oscar Isaac. I’m just skipping the movie entirely, but of course I’ve been covering a lot of the promotion. They promoted the film off of Timmy and Zendaya – they were the actors sent out to shill for the movie on magazine covers, at premieres and junkets, etc. It’s been The Zendaya & Timothee Show and their natural chemistry has been enchanting. They’re lovely together. So… as it turns out, Zendaya’s part in the movie is minuscule. She basically has a cameo, and someone tallied her screentime up and it only comes to SEVEN MINUTES?
I totally understand why Zendaya’s fans are mad and they should be! The only thing I’ll say in defense of the filmmakers is that from what I’ve heard, she’ll be the sequel a lot more if they do make a sequel? Which they probably will, since Dune is performing better than expected in its theatrical run. It made $40.1 million opening weekend and that’s with Warner Bros “unconventional” approach to put it on HBO Max as well. (update: they confirmed yesterday that Dune 2: Rise of the Dunes is happening.)
PS… I’m worried that this is what’s happening with Angelina Jolie and The Eternals too. My fear is that she basically just has an extended cameo and Gemma Chan is the for-real lead. I’m also worried that Jolie’s Thena character dies in the movie and that means no sequels. Booooo.
Now see, all the Dune fans coming out like “well if you had read the book you’d know her character isn’t….” I DON’T WANT TO READ THE BOOK I WANT TO SEE ZENDAYA WHAT’S NOT CLICKING STEVEN
— Lane (@lanewriteswords) October 22, 2021
Gotta give Zendaya credit. She's been working that #Dune promotional tour like someone who had more than five lines in the movie. Attagirl.
— Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) October 23, 2021
WHAT DO YOU MEAN ZENDAYA IS ONLY IN DUNE FOR SEVEN MINUTES pic.twitter.com/NHH0es6JFm
— anna says abortion is healthcare (@GrahSeeYa) October 22, 2021
this is literally all Zendaya does in her 2 minutes of screen time in Dune i'm not joking pic.twitter.com/W4SxQGJgw5
— gaspar | kaidan's bf (real) (@alenkorra) October 23, 2021
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
yesterday, zendaya’s mom posted on instagram that the second was confirmed, and then I saw that elsewhere too. Zendaya’s character will be (or should be?) in the second part of the movie a whole lot more.
I saw the movie and did not realize her parts were so short while watching. He dreams of her from the very beginning of the movie, and you see her periodically throughout up until the end. It’s my husband’s favorite book and I thought the movie would be boring, but it wasn’t. Of course, he’s told me about it a lot so I knew what to expect. I thought it was very interesting, and I liked the witch lady people who can make people/things do whatever by speaking in a crazy voice
Love Dune (the book) and yes, Chani is not featured heavily in the beginning of the book/mini-series/other movie. Glad it did well enough that they’re making the second part.
It’s kind of BS because they use her casting and image to promote the film, but then don’t actually feature her in the work. Almost a bait-and-switch. I think it’s disrespectful to the actor…give them little to work with, but work them for you.
@ GrnieWnie, I agree wholeheartedly!! They want her star and beauty power without having given her much screen time, 7 entire minutes, without the security of an offer already on the table and signed. I hope that they paid her very well for the entire promotional tour, make up, hair, etc.
I don’t know why people are so surprised, they’ve been really clear in every interview that she only shot for 3 or 4 days and that she’s essentially a cameo in this film (and it’s mentioned in every review too); but in the second one Denis is making her the protagonist of the story. Which is an interesting choice because her character Chani is certainly not the protagonist of the second half of the book – it is Paul’s story. Maybe it will be his story from her POV? I don’t really know what Denis has in mind; but it’s definitely a risky choice considering the fandom. So Zendaya and Timothee are the faces of this work as a whole, which is why she’s doing so much promo for this one, even though she’s barely in it.
Rebecca’s character Jessica is the secondary protagonist in the first half of the story. Chani doesn’t appear at all in the first half of the book.
I don’t think that Z is hard done by at all. This is the role she went for, she would have known that she was a cameo in this one. She’s doing promo with the bigger picture in mind.
We should be talking about how Rebecca Ferguson has a big role in this and is absolutely marvellous. She’s being cheated the attention and reckognition she deserves.
But sure, focus on Zendaya that came in last minute and has a very little role in the part 1 movie. (It will for sure be bigger in part 2, but why not give credit to the ones acting in THIS one?)
YES! I have never seen her in anything and I thought she was amazing. And Charlotte Rampling!!!!! OMGGGGGGGGGGGG
Gonna say, as much as I like Charlotte Rampling (and think she did great in this!), I -still- think they should’ve just gotten Sian Phillips back for it.
I love Rebecca Ferguson. I had the biggest crush on her during the White Queen.
I can’t get over the fact that she is playing Paul’s mother! She is 38 and Chalamet is 25. I haven’t read the books so I’m not sure if this is meant to be a culture where girls become concubines at 13 but oy…seems like a case of Hollywood BS casting.
His character is supposed to be 15 or so at the beginning of the saga
I get what you’re saying about the lack of age difference between the actors but Paul is only a teenager in the beginning so in actuality TC is playing a character much younger, not so much RF playing one much older. Oscar Isaac plays his father and in real life he’s only about 15/16 years older than TC. That’s Hollywood for you 😉.
It helps that Chalamet looks 15, which he’s supposed to be. better than 1984 Dune with Kyle McLaughlan, who looked 30 while his mom Francesca Annis looked about 40.
I think I heard oscar isaac is only like 16 years older than chalomet
The character Rebecca is playing, Lady Jessica, is a Bene Geserit—they know how to control/slow their aging process and remain young looking, far beyond their years.
Omg!! I know. I am so horrible that I actually did the math and she would have been 12 (she’d turn 13 two months after his birth). Yeah, that is the level of my dorkiness and I own it proudly!
Henry 7th mother Margaret Beaufort was 12 when she had him. Traumatic birth rendered her infertile afterward. It’s amazing she survived it. In the book Jessica was about 36 I believe, and Paul was 15. She was 14 when Duke Leto bought her as a bound concubine
Casting is appropriate. Jessica have Paul at age 19, with him being 15 in the novel, making her 34 at the same time, more or less. That was roughly Fergusen’s age at the time of shooting.
I don’t see anyone casting an unproven actor, much less an actual teenager, ina role carrying a behemoth blockbuster investment, so while Timothee is certainly older than book Paul, casting a baby faced older and proven actor in this case is a legitimately smart business decision.
The only other thing I saw her in was Dr. Sleep, and she was fantastic in that.
Have loved her since her first appearance in the Mission Impossible franchise — she elevated that film by miles. She is an incredible actress, commands the screen, and is gorgeous to boot.
Rebecca Ferguson was amazing!
I’ve seen Dune two times now. Looking forward to the second.
Zendaya was in it as much as the character warranted. She was in it from the start, but only in dreams to begin with.
People need to chill.
Rebecca Ferguson is absolutely divine in this movie, one of the best parts of a great film. She elevates everything she’s in. I also loved her in the Mission: Impossible movies.
I don’t like big epic movies but I loved Dune. I am a fan of the director so I went in thinking I would like it but I was surprised by how much I ended up engrossed. And I watched it at home. She doesn’t have many lines but you can tell she is important to the story and will feature prominently in the second half. What I didn’t expect was that Rebecca Ferguson really has one of the biggest parts and is amazing.
Zendaya knows that she needs to help promote the movie so that the sequel (where she has a bigger role) gets made. She understands the assignment. And it helped, bc didnt WB just sign on for the sequel?
As for the Eternals – I think its pretty clear from the trailers that Gemma Chan is the for-real lead, I’m not sure why that’s a cause for “fear” lol. I think Jolie has more than an “extended cameo” and because she is the bigger name out of the two, she’s getting more focus, but I think Gemma is definitely the lead. I don’t really think the previews are trying to hide that.
Yeah, I’m laughing. All the promotion featuring Zendaya and she’s only in the movie for 7 minutes?
Folks! That’s on Zendaya! She’s the one out there pushing to get interviews and showing up on every red carpet with smoking fashion. She’s in every photo with Chalomet. How much publicity a star will get and the budget supporting it is in the contracts to do the film. She’s getting co-star status in the publicity for a supporting role because she demanded it. AS well she should. And now the haters are pretending that it’s the fault of the film’s marketing people that she has a small role in the film. LMAO. And get your fabulous promotion on, Z!
I wish these superfans would shut up. No, the character is not really in the first half of the book. Yes, the director is being true to the book. No, he can’t adapt a cult and literary sci-fi classic that underpinned the creation of the Star Trek and Star Wars universe just to please you lot.
Lol, +1
Dune is a really hard book to adapt for a movie. The first try was a hot mess.
All of this! They don’t know the book or don’t realize it’s a book adaptation.
Thank you! Anyone who knows anything about this story knows she will play a more more important role later on. This move was the set up
It’s one thing to not read the book, but there have been a few Dune adaptations out that would confirm that the character of Chani is pretty important. These super fans could have just clicked on a wiki page.
Also the title is Dune Part 1. Clearly there will be a part 2.
exactly
Yeah I got irritated too. STFU and STFD Part one. Part two. Let’s look at what happened, if you will little dandelions, Timothy’s character and his mother survive a merciless attack and then that big, bad, ugly sandstorm. You remember, the one where the boy’s character took his hands off the controls and basically went with the flow? They crash in the desert and meet up those weird sand people? And he comes face to face with the girl he’s been dreaming about for ages. He wins his showdown and tells his mother they’re staying (it’s what his father wanted) to help. To stand for them. Fight for them. Protect them. (It’s a stretch, but you can handle it). The last thing the girl says before leading them forward into the horizon of their city in the sand? This is only the beginning. With most of his family and friends dead, most of the actors in part one, it seems to reason that, “This is only the beginning,” sets up part two.
There there now. You could always read the books. Or see how far we’ve come with storytelling on film since the 80s. I thought the movie was awesome. But I’m a fan of the story, the books. They’ve been trying to get this right visually for some time. They were successful.
Well said @Mabs. 💯🔥 Could not have said it better! I saw the movie with my husband. Who I made SURE to tell him it was only first half or he would have been mad as h*ll. We both loved it!
Can you believe I actually contemplated waiting until part two was released so I could wallow in the full experience? I bounced it around in my brain until I told my husband who just looked at me like I was a colossal idiot. “You’d never watch anything if you shelve until projects are fully complete lol.” But I still had to have the perfect setup…to give it due ceremony. Yes. I’m a wackadoo.
So much this!! Thank you.
Exactly. I am a nerd who read Dune and geeked out on it long before it was (very recently) cool to do so.
The book has been long overdue for a movie that was well made, allocated the budget it deserves, and given the attention to detail that it got.
The current movie has covered maybe the first third of the novel, and hardly touched the substantive plot of the story. It scratched the surface, and that is it.
I would have been ticked if the plot had been shot into space just to appease a pop star’s fans. Chani is heavily featured in the book, as are many things (including the Fremen themselves!) that were hardly shown in the film due to time constraints and world building emphasis.
People who are mad never read the book. Paul doesn’t meet Chani (Zendaya’s character) until he goes to live with the Fremen. That doesn’t happen until about halfway through the book. The movie only covers… the first half of the book. She will feature much more heavily in the second film.
If they make part two (this movie is part One) we would most probably get to see her do slightly more… But her character in the book is pretty much “love interest/noble savage warrior”, Lady Jessica and Alia have all the meaty parts. It’s not a progressive book, and the movie just changed some characters gender and ethnicity to appear more contemporary.
It’s something close to false advertising that they have centered so much of the promotion around her – she’s being very gracious and very professional, however.
Chani does some badass stuff in part 2 of the books–she’s a lot more than noble savage. I won’t say what so I’m no accused of spoiling again, but she takes definitive action on behalf of her man and on behalf of the Fremen.
The same thing happened with Tom Hiddleston in Infinity War. He was promoting the crap out of that movie and was only in the first 5 minutes of the film.
Zendaya was a bit of a non entity in Dune part 1 but she’ll definitely have a bigger role in part 2 (which has been announced).
Her PR team needs to slow down before she becomes overexposed. There’s no reason for her to do so much promo for a cameo. Spiderman comes out in December and she will have to do even more promo for that.
Probably not the decision of her team. More than likely she is contractually obligated by the studio to promote the movie.
Not her team’s choice — it was a marketing decision from the film studio.
People need to chill. If they had bothered to read the book they would know her part is integral in the second half of the book. In the first she’s a vision, literally. They actually expanded her role by making her the narrator for the opening. In the book each chapter opens with a quote from Irulan the Emperor’s daughter as she is the one writing the history of Paul and Dune.
Plus Denis has said he plans to make Dune Messiah which has a lot of Chani. I really hope they make the third because it really helps hit home the dangers of a cult of personality which was a central idea to Herbert.
Sorry huge Dune nerd. My daughter is named for Duke Leto ….so yeah. We nerds.
That’s the problem. A lot of people have not read the book (and its sequels).
This also goes for the white savior complaints because that too will be addressed in part 2
Ugh I know! The number of reviews I read where they complained about that. I want to shake them so badly and say that’s the point! Herbert is warning us of reliance on a savior/ a cult of personality and the dangers of it. Dune ends with Paul realizing, in horror, of what he has created.
I was really excited to see that Denis is playing with the concept of the over reliance of the prescient vision and that what Paul is seeing are possible paths. Not an exact future.
You named your daughter Leto? Cool! I’m partial to the names of Alia and Irulan myself
We named her Leta so it was a little feminized. Although the original Leto was Apollo and Artemis his mother so really Herbert took a feminine name and applied it to a masculine character.
My husband and I first bonded over loving Dune and we wanted to find a way to honor that. Also we fell in love with the name. Our daughter is so feisty but such a princess too, it totally fits her.
What an awesome way to bond! I’d like to get a goldfish and name it Shaddam the 4th, but I’d probably forget about it and kill it, or my cat would eat it. And Atriedes goes back to the Greek House of Atreus so Herbert was into Greek mythology. They are direct descendants of Agamemnon.
I am reading it right now for the first time after seeing the movie. It’s a good read and I like it. However, so far it’s not as complicated or difficult as I was led to believe. Maybe it gets crazier after the attack. What I didn’t get from the movie that is abundantly clear in the book is that *everyone except Paul* knew that Arrakis was a trap.
Lovely 💓 I was named after Chani. My dad was/is such a nerd, as am I!
It’s because of where they ended the story. They spent the whole movie on the Harkkonen invasion and not any of the survival or romance that comes later that would involve Zendaya.
I love dune (the book) and and as a WOC channi is obviously my favorite character because of how her culture is framed vs the empire. With that said I get it story and run time wise but I don’t like it. Even if you’re a Dune nerd the underutilization of Zendaya is criminal cause she is a great actress.
Promotion-wise she has done a lot of heavy lifting so of course it’s going to come as a surprise if you only see her for seven minutes. Do you get paid as an actor for the promotion? If so, she deserves a good fee for that work alone. She is mostly present as a mysterious figure in premonitions in 3/4 of the film. I will say that her scenes towards the finale showed she would have a great character to work with if they make the sequel. I loved this film (it’s been out for a few months in Europe), it’s gorgeous to look at (art-house aesthetics meet blockbuster budget), the actors are bringing their best work and they managed to make some good choices within storytelling and screenwriting to bring this unwieldy novel to the screen. It deserves awards recognition and a greenlit sequel asap. I wonder if they’ll touch the sequels in the book series though it gets even more unwieldy with every book.
I don’t think they get paid for the promotion per se, but my understanding is its part of their contract and a good agent/lawyer is going to factor that in – so I’m sure Zendaya got a nice paycheck for this movie because they knew she was going to do a lot of the heavy lifting for the promotions.
They’ve heavily played on her star appeal and the Paul/Chani relationship in the 2nd half of the book (and sequel) to promote this to the younger audience. Let’s face it she is a bigger draw than Timothee.
Am going to see it at the weekend – have heard great reviews about it, that its visually stunning. And yeah Ferguson is getting lots of rave reviews from those I know who have seen it.
Are you sure about that? I’d say internationally, they are on the same level of fame. Timothee has lots of young fans.
LMAO! I was waiting for this. Those that know the story were all waiting for this to happen. Kudos to the PR team, you played them hard! Seriously, no shade. It was a smart way to bring in a younger crowd.
Now wait until they find out how it all ends, LOL! 😂
+💯
As Chani is the MOST important person in Paul’s life even BEFORE he met her…I don’t have an issue with the promotion…I saw it in the theater yesterday…big UPS to my local Regal theater for having matinee showings during the week…there was only me…my girl & one other in that big ass theater…so we SAFELY gorged on popcorn & pop with ABANDON after almost TWO YEARS of not doing one of my FAVORITE things❣ And yes…I enjoyed the movie VERY MUCH!
Chani will have a lot more to do in Dune 2. Her heavy promotion is what helped Dune 2 get made. That’s her job–promote the film so that the part where her character has a key role gets made. And then hopefully Dune Messaiah, where she also has a key role, gets made. Let’s go, Dune franchise! If Dune 5 and 5 get made, those books are completely women-centered because they are all about the Bene Gesserit!! I would LOVE to see Darwi Odrade (my GIRL) as Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit on film. What’s so cool about Dune to me is that it starts as a Hero’s Quest/Messaih story, then completely deconstructs the Messiah mythos, then pans the camera out on the civilation to show the danger of charismatic leaders, and how 1 person should NEVER hold all of human destiny in hand (not even a man who has been transformed into a giant sandworm and lives for 3500 years.)
Did anyone do a count for how long Jason Momoa was in the film? Judging by his comments, I think he really wants Dune Messiah and subsequent novels made (no spoilers here)
Jason Momoa is, aside from the visuals, the best part of this film.
His role gets bigger as the books progress, esp when Alia is introduced.
I loved the movie, the music was amazing and images were beautiful. We have the books at home and I’ll read them in a few weeks. I didn’t mind that Zendaya was only present in a few scene, but I admit I was surprised. Good marketing ! After seeing the film I read she only shoot for 4 days in the desert, so of course her role in this first part wasn’t going to be huge.
I knew going that Z would only be in it for 7 minutes. But it looks like there will sequel and she’ll be in more of that. I know folks didn’t like the film but I LOVED it. It so beautiful and dark and a true and ensemble cast but this film was all Timothee and Rebecca. I’m looking forward to the next Dune.
She may be in the movie for only seven minutes, but you can feel her presence throughout the whole thing. And anyone surprised clearly wasn’t paying attention to her interviews. She mentioned multiple times that she only filmed for like five days. I didn’t read the book, but she’ll have a much bigger part in the second film. I also recommend ppl see this movie. It’s so good and beautifully done and not boring at all. Also like someone else mentioned, Rebecca Ferguson is amazing.
I remember reading when the Dune trailer was first released that her fans would be disappointed because she isn’t in the first half of the story in the way the promotional materials made it out to be. It was smart of the movie studio to heavily promote her, though — she’s one of the most popular young stars of the moment, I’d say, and if they were looking to get Dune 2 greenlit, they needed that attention.
Her fans love her so much. They have got to wait till the next one. Love the angry baby with the telephone.
I want a bigger role for Marianne Faithful than just a disembodied, but very distinctive, voice.
Wait, Marianne is on this? I had no idea!
She’s one of the voices. Most of the voices are distorted so they were a bit difficult to identify but her voice is so damaged already that it doesn’t sound like they did much to distort it. I recognized it immediately and IMDB confirmed it for me.
This movie looks insanely boring. The ONLY reason I would see it is for Zendaya. So I guess I’m skipping it for sure!
My thought is the studio is putting her out there to drum up support and, based on the reaction already, it makes an easy greenlight for the second part knowing that someone with this huge of a fanbase is going to have a bigger role.
I did not know going in that this was just part 1. Zendaya’s character is important from the beginning of the film. There is a huge buildup around her. The movie is worth watching for sure. It has an amazing cast and visuals. The 80s version didn’t hold my interest, but I couldn’t look away from this one.
I saw the movie yesterday and while it’s visually stunning, it was very boring for me. I couldn’t care less what was going to happen to the characters. And i feel it is due to artistic choices made by director, not because of the actors.
However i feel that making the promotional tour about Zendaya is a kind of false marketing. I would be very disappointed if i went to see the movie for her and she wasn’t really there. Some of you mentioned that you can feel her presence thorough the movie – that’s true but it doesn’t really excuse the fact she’s not in movie that much. It would be like making the press tour of Iron Man 2 all about Samuel L Jackson.
But Zendaya made it clear in interviews that she showed up mid shooting, did her part quick and left. Do her fans pay attention to what she says?
Honestly I am surprised people were shocked by this. Zendaya did mention in a lot of the press for the film that she only did a 5 day shoot and only shows up in the protagonist’s visions. That being said, I also can see how folks felt mislead as she was put at the center of the pr campaign.
As far as Angie, I wish I could say with certainty that she will have a larger role, but honestly Eternals is one of the few Marvel comics that I am not familiar with lol. Still I am sure she will be amazing in it.
I went into the movie not knowing anything about Dune and was totally engrossed while I was watching even though I didn’t really feel emotionally connected to it after it was over, then I went home and read up on some of the details that felt like I didn’t really understand what was happening because I hadn’t read the book first, fell into a lore spiral, and now I’ve become a bit obsessed and rewatched the movie at home with that added context, and I loved it SO much more.
But yeah, my impression going in at first on Zendaya’s screen time was influenced by the snarky commentary about how minimal and cameo-like it was, but her presence is much much more felt than the jokes imply, and it was much more than I was expecting. yes, besides the opening exposition about the planet, for the majority of the film you only see ethereal visions of her Paul has for like half a second, but his visions are a super important part of his character, and they happen in a lot of the more crucial moments in the film, so the impression and the presence of her really hits. And like yeah, she only appears in person in the last few minutes of the movie, but it really feels like we’ve been waiting for her to show up the entire time, and it’s really satisfying when she does, and she’s just this really cool, normal person in real life, and it’s amazing. And she’s CLEARLY set up to be a main character in the sequel, so I don’t know why people are complaining about her being in all the promo for the first part of a franchise she’s going to be a major star of.
Dune is some white saviour nonsense
I’m a sci-fi nerd. I’ve read the books and I know that the Paul character realizes he’s not the saviour later – everyone who points that out is a white dude. And guess which book is the most popular? Yup, the first book where a white guy shows up to save/plunder desert tribes and bang 🙄
Good sci fi books by women:
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (funny, uplifting)
Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie (intense, includes gender and mind theory)
Murderbot by Martha Wells (hilarious, short)
I don’t see how you could have read the books and come away saying it’s a clear-cut white savior narrative. The whole point of the story is the danger of relying and putting faith in messianic, outlander “exceptional” men. You can argue that it’s not always handled perfectly (I would agree the book shows its age in many areas), but it’s not as simple as you make it out. The level to which Herbert included Islamic and North African/Arab imagery, terms, and mystical concepts not just among the Fremen but the larger world was also innovative for the time and I think it’s disappointing this film (as well as the 80s Lynch film) has watered that down.
Yeah. Let’s just say the book ends with Paul realizing he has a lot in common with another character played by one of his Dune costars.
That’s a no for me on white savior. The Messiah idea gets reconsidered over the series. It’s not for everybody, but I love the importance of women in the series, particularly as the series goes on.
I’m baffled that you read the book and thought this. The first book is very explicit that Paul is exploiting the Fremen for his own ends. He believes those ends are necessary, but it does not soft-pedal the exploitation in the slightest. I think Dune has flaws (it needs more Fremen perspectives for one), but calling it a white-savior story seems like an extremely cursory reading.
I saw the movie, and the few minutes Zendaya has of screen time are, um, less than impressive. It stands out because everyone else is so good. And surprising because I like her in other things. Hopefully she’ll be better in the next one.
I was blown away by Dune – a magnificent film. Sure, Zendaya only gets limited screentime – but her character is fairly key to the whole plot and concept of the film. (More so than in the book.) Rebecca Ferguson is the stand-out actor in the whole thing: she’s brilliant, with the meatest role in acting terms.
Good grief. They haven’t gotten to her part yet. This response is ridiculous. This was only the first part of the book which is brilliant btw. The movie is not boring and is amazing. Does no one read anymore?
My seething resentment of the David Lynch version has been simmering away for decades, but this film has fulfilled every wish of my inner Dune nerd. Watching it was like watching my own imagination brought to life. This was how I imagined the Dune universe as I was reading the books. The cast is chef’s kiss perfect. So looking forward to part two, and I’m crossing my fingers for the rest of the book trilogy.
I doubt that’s the only reason her fans are annoyed.
While I enjoyed this film for what it was, and went in knowing it was likely to be problematic, its diverse cast is either window dressing or cannon fodder (or both). When you add that to Zendaya being in it for seven minutes tops most of which is her standing amongst the dunes ominously in what end up being Paul’s visions. It starts looking a lot like a rerun of the racebait and switch the Star Wars “sequels” brought, and no one wants to get caught out or up in that kind of bs again.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Black audiences mainly skip this. It’s pretty much the same white guy god colonialist adventure fantasy that the majority of sci-fi and fantasy unfortunately has as their bedrock. Not that people can’t enjoy it but some people are actually tired of stories where PoC are a support system/resource/threat/expendable army in white peoples adventure stories. Ijs.
And yet people want to complain about Marvel 24/7 when they’re the only ones trying to do better and create franchises with meaningful PoC leads.
Black audiences who read (and loved) the books like me won’t skip it. That’s not how the books play out. One of my favorite Youtubers is a guy named Quinn who does videos about Dune lore. I started watching the videos, then realized as they continued that he was a young black guy (yay!). He actually made a video asking the question: is Dune a white savior story? He looked at the history of white savior tropes, and looked at Dune. I actually used some of his video in a class I teach.
Yes, that’s why I said “mainly”. There are bound to be some Black fans of Dune but I doubt there are as many checking in as watched Black Panther.
Based off the book, it’s expected she will have a much bigger role in the second part of the movie. I have to agree, Rebecca Ferguson should be getting more attention, but I didn’t even know who she was before this movie. So, I guess it’s expected that they’re using Zendaya to heavily promote Dune. She’s more known.
Zendaya’s character kind of haunts the film as Chani haunts Paul’s mind long before he meets her. I never really noticed how brief her whole appearance was as a result.
And seriously, some of the great performances in film have been pretty brief: look at Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and he won an Oscar for that.
The fans need to chill.
I mean, yeah? In the book, she has a major role in the second half of the story and is only hinted at in the beginning. What did people expect?
For most of the first book, Chani is figure in Paul’s dreams. And since the filmmakers are following the story closely, we shouldn’t expect to see much of her. She is a big part of the 2nd and third books.
I loved Dune so much more than I expected. I’m probably going to watch it again and I just bought the book.
Guess I might have to wait for the sequel to watch this…unless Jason (sexy as all get out) Momoa has more then seven minutes in this one…
He does and he looks FOINE. I think he looks sexy with a face of stubble as opposed to the full-on beard.
I dont care what anyone says, I love Lynch’s version. Its weird and it doesn’t match the book so great, but its extremely evocative and friggin STING was in it. Also, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho? Really? I’m all about putting Jason Momoa anywhere and everywhere but they couldve made him Stilgar. Duncan Idaho is supposed to be a smallish, lithe dude- like a dancer, is how hes described in the book.
Anyway. I’ve been waiting for this Dune for… like… ever. I’m almost afraid to watch it, now that its here!
I watched this over the weekend and I LOVED it. It’s very visually arresting. I was seriously so blown away by so many of the beautiful shots. But the pace is also quick and thrilling. I have to say, I loved Rebecca Ferguson the best, her character was very intriguing and compelling (and a badass).