Spoilers Off applies to all Nightmare Fuel pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- Rabban, who spends most of the movie undergoing a Villainous Breakdown thanks to Muad'Dib, beating one of his underlings to death. His crime? He was the bearer of bad news regarding Fremen sabotage of the spice mining operations. The servant calmly suggests that his lord should have a rest before Rabban starts slamming his skull into the table while screaming like an utter lunatic.Rabban: RATS! HAIRY RATS! KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL! KILL! THEM! ALL!! RATS!!!
- A subtle source of Realism-Induced Horror is the way the Harkonnen refer to the Fremen as "rats' during their attempt to ethnically cleanse Arrakis. It's disturbingly reminiscent of how the perpetrators of both The Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide referred to their targets as vermin.
- Paul's nightmares of billions across the galaxy starving to death because of him, seeing the silhouette of an emaciated person with their jaw open in hunger, who doesn't even look human. Even scarier if you've read the books and know that this is exactly what will come to pass, both as the result of Muad'Dib's Jihad and later the Scattering. In fact, the age preceding the Scattering is referred to as The Famine Times.
- Paul also had a small hallucination as he ate the Spice-laden food of the Fremen. It serves as a glimpse of what's to come. It wasn't about death. It was about worship. It shows the Fremen praying in front of a shrine with a skull motif, and a picture of the late Leto Atreides. It showed that the Fremen are so fanatic that they will not only worship Paul, but also worship and bow before a shrine they built in gratitude for a dead man who had helped brought the Lisan al-Gaib to the world. It is terrifying as much as it is disturbing.
- The Water of Life. It's practically a poison. Jessica, despite being handpicked to succeed as Reverend Mother, was hesitant to drink it, but the Voice of her predecessor commands her to do it. Jessica convulses after she drank it, collapsing on the ground. What happened to her unborn daughter is shown onscreen, as the Water practically filled the womb, surrounding the growing fetus. The music adds to the tension as it reaches its apex, right up to the moment when the fetus gave the audience an Eye Awaken and revealing the eyes of Ibad as the water unlocked her mind. The horror on the predecessor's face is palpable as she realizes Jessica's pregnancy too late. The loud gasp heard when both of their blue eyes of Ibad was revealed is less of relief that both mother and daughter survived the effects of the poison, but more of the realization that through surviving the poison, they turned into monsters. What's worse? The rest of the movie confirmed that fact. And the Bene Gesserit have a special name for children born with the Water of Life in their system: "Abomination."Ramallo: What have we done? She is pregnant!
- Jessica's turn from timid bystander to ruthless manipulator upon taking the Water of Life pretty much indicates you do not want to be near her and disagree with her desires. This is true for any Bene Gesserit. As Reverend Mother Mohiam mentioned, they plan. Jessica had the grand plan to put in place the Kwisatz-Haderach and would stop at nothing to do it - using the Voice if needed. She used it to coerce the Worm tender into welcoming Paul into the chamber and take the Water of life. She also countered Chani's refusal to participate in the ritual by using the voice on her. When the Fremen commandeer the Corrino ships, Jessica just stands at the altar with a satisfied look upon her face, confirming the war has begun.
- This is also when she starts acting like her unborn daughter is talking to her, constantly scheming out loud and carrying on half a conversation with a voice that seems to egg her on. Only in the final scenes of the movie do we hear anything from the daughter herself, confirming that she is in fact speaking, and it takes several scenes after the Water of Life to make it clear her daughter is in fact still alive and growing after being exposed to the poison. Until then it seems like Jessica is delusional and imagining the voices at best, or at worst completely snapped and talking to a potentially dead fetus after the poison killed her unborn daughter.
- Immediately after becoming Reverend Mother, her entire character takes a drastic shift toward. She immediately tells Paul to drink the water of life, despite knowing there's a non-zero chance it'd kill him, to fulfill the prophecy she knows full well her order manufactured. She goes from skeptical and pragmatic to fanatical and borderline vicious, it's incredibly unnerving to see. For as much as the Fremen can fall for the prophecy, none of them is half as unhinged and zealot as Jessica is in that scene.Jessica: (to Paul) You will see! The beauty and the horror!
- Rabban goes to visit the Baron about the Fremen attacks on spice mining operations. We find him standing outside the Baron's chamber while inside we can hear a woman's voice screaming and pleading for mercy. The sound stops and Rabban enters to find the Baron floating over his oil bath. On the other side of the room are the twisted corpses of two dead attendant girls. It is not revealed exactly what the Baron did to them.
- Worse: the screams are high-pitched and frantic enough that, to a viewer familiar with the Baron's sadistic sexual habits in the novels, the poor attendants with their slight androgynous appearances look and sound an awful lot like adolescent children. (We do see some adult women on Giedi Prime in Part Two, but with the exception of Feyd-Rautha's cannibal concubines, they all seem absolutely miserable under the harshly sexist regime.)
- When Rabban decides to personally deal with Paul, he comes stomping out of his ornithopter with a cadre of Harkonnen soldiers in tow while roaring for Muad'Dib to come out and face him. As a sandstorm obscures the surrounding area, the Fremen begin stealthily dispatching Rabban's men in a ruthless Mook Horror Show for the ages, which is then followed by a hooded and cloaked Paul calmly marching towards him from the shadows like a grim reaper preparing to claim his unfortunate victim. Is it any wonder Rabban immediately changes his tune and starts booking it back to the ornithopter? And we got a glimpse of the Fremen's fanaticism and their combat prowess in a Fremen woman who came close to killing Rabban. It makes a terrifying mix.FOR MUAD'DIB!
- In one of his nightmares/visions after obtaining the nuclear warheads, Paul sees Chani standing on a ridge staring at a nuclear explosion. When he runs to her and she falls in his arms, her face has been completely melted away. Paul then wakes up to the sound of explosions (the attack on Sietch Tabr) and the sight of Chani standing on a ridge, and for one nightmarish moment he thinks that his vision has come true.
- Unlike David Lynch's rendition of the character, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is not a redhead Affably Evil villain that hams it up during a Knife Fight. Instead, we get a slender, bald, dead-eyed psychopath with alabaster skin and black teeth like he just walked out of a Marilyn Manson music video. Instead of outright killing his opponents, he takes a genuinely disturbing thrill in making sure they struggle first. In fact, if you look closely enough during his fight in the arena, you can see him drooling in sadistic ecstasy. When Princess Irulan describes him as "psychotic", she wasn't kidding.
- Feyd-Rautha's Establishing Character Moment has him test one of his new blades by slitting the throat of a servant girl and stabbing another several times.
- Immediately following this is the gladiatorial combat scene on Giedi Prime, which was filmed in infrared due to the light put out by the planet's black sun. The stark high contrast makes Feyd's violent dispatching of three Atreides fighters captured as slaves that much more nightmarish. Especially terrifying is the animalistic way in which Feyd barked like a rabid dog after killing the second drugged slave, and then roaring and screamed out "BACK!" at the guards who come to try and kill the last, undrugged slave, whom he sees as a Worthy Opponent. Even as he's close to death at the hands of the Atreides, with the knife mere inches from his face, he laughed and drooled, and the camera angle it showed from made his blackened mouth look like a grin worthy of Joker himself as he continued barking the guards to "STAY BACK!". It proved Gurney's prominent quote from the previous movie correct, and set Feyd up as the perfect Foil to Paul, as, unlike Paul, Feyd seemed to be in the mood. All the time. Gurney calling Paul a "young pup"? Well, then, Feyd is a rabid one.Gurney: You've never met Harkonnens before. I have. They're not human. They're BRUTAL!
- The introduction of the arena. Through Fenring's binoculars, we got a hint of what life on Giedi Prime looks like. And the daytime is much worse than nighttime. With the people of the planet considering their Baron and his heir, the na-Baron, as deities, as heard from the announcer considering Feyd's birthday as Holy. The announcer's deep voice, coupled with Harkonnen's Black Speech announcements and chants, and the sadistic slashing-like gestures they do while awaiting their champion, the na-Baron, made the world seemed even more outworldly than even Salusa Secundus. And the sheer number of the Harkonnen spectators. "Harkonnens outnumber the Atreides."? There's your proof.
- The way he speaks to his concubines, asking them what they want from the men he kills is pretty disturbing as well. That he seems to prefer cannibalistic concubines really tells you how screwed up he is beyond just being an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight.
- According to Margot, Feyd-Rautha was able to pass the gom jabbar test without any difficulty, outright stating that he derived pleasure from being subjected to intense pain.
- Margot Fenring. The Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam sent to test Feyd-Rautha. And her encounter with Feyd showed that despite his combat prowess and his sadistic glee in the arena, it's nothing compared to the Bene Gesserit's Compelling Voice. Mohiam using the Voice to call Paul over to her and kneel before her? How about Fenring guiding Feyd to another part of a building, a place where he's never been to, without him realizing it? And, unlike Mohiam with Paul, she ordered Feyd to do the Gom Jabbar with that same Voice.Margot: (to Feyd-Rautha) Put your right hand in the box.
- The film's ending, in which Paul fully gives in to the temptations of power as the Kwisatz Haderach, becoming Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe by force, and demonstrating his new position to the Great Houses, who refuse to accept his rule, by asking his followers to "lead them to paradise". The fanaticism of Paul's followers, including Stilgar, as they board the ships in preparation to spread Paul's jihad across the Universe, is chilling, and made all the more chilling by the way the film's grammar presents this as a triumphant moment for Paul, even though both Chani and the audience can see that it is anything but.
- The sheer power of the new Padishah Emperor, the Lisan al-Gaib, is no laughing matter. This is a man who is capable of turning Arrakis to a Green Paradise with a wave of his hand, just as Paul said to Kynes in Part One, or unleash hell upon the rest of the universe with just a few words. And the audience now knows just what he decided to do first. Mohiam wasn't kidding when she said the Kwisatz Haderach was a form of power that the world has not yet seen. The ultimate power. In this case, not just for his ability to see the past and future, but for the sheer manpower he wields.
- "Lead them to Paradise." Such a simple command had never been so terrifying, especially as the audience knows what it means. It means coming to all Planets of the Great Houses, and, by extension, the Known Universe, and converting everyone to believe in the new Padishah Emperor, the Lisan al-Gaib. For everyone who believes in him will be led to Paradise, and everyone who doesn't, which is everyone choosing to believe in different religions besides the Fremen's or other messiahs besides the Lisan al-Gaib, shall perish. And the war that ensues is called the Holy War, or Muad'Dib's Jihad, if you're familiar with the books. Does This Remind You of Anything?
- In general, Paul Atreides's transformation is rather harrowing to watch. When we first meet Paul, he's a wide-eyed if not somewhat haughty warrior prince with a loving family, stern but caring teachers, and a beautiful home he's clearly hesitant to leave behind. But the tragedies he faces on Arrakis, the horrific destiny planted for him by the Bene Gesserit, and the crushing expectations of the fundamentalist Fremen slowly chip away at him, leaving the once-optimistic young man a tired and weary shell. Then, finally, upon taking the Water of Life and awakening the full depth of his abilities, he surrenders to the promise of ultimate power and resolves to topple the Emperor by any means necessary. The new Paul makes his ominous debut in the south, donning a darker appearance and approaching his soon-to-be army by way of a slow, menacing stroll with Shai-Hulud erupting from the sands behind him. All set to the tune of the growling, ominous "Arrival"
, as if the score itself is telling us the heroic Paul we met in Part One is well and truly gone. In his place is Muad'Dib, the man who will bathe the known universe in agony and death. And the terrifying cherry on top of the nightmarish cake? His mother, The Chessmaster, already waiting for him, donning an attire similar to that of Mohiam's, whose colors evoke more of Light Is Not Good, satisfied by her pride and joy's complete transformation.- How does one know that the old Paul is definitely gone? Let's see: A Holy War spreading across the universe like an unquenchable fire. The Fremen, a warrior religion, waves the Atreides banner throughout the battle for Arrakis, not only in the name of the Lisan al-Gaib, but the Duke of Arrakis. His father's former title. And after consuming the melange in the Fremen's food, he envisioned fanatical legions of Fremen worshipping at the shrine of his father's skull. There is a war in his name, alright. Everyone shouting Lisan al-Gaib. The chain of events is complete, and, unlike the Paul we saw desperately trying to stop the horrors of his visions back in the tent in Part One, this one embraced it wholeheartedly, and consciously said the words that would set everything in motion without batting an eye.
- Subsequently too across from him is Stilgar's own transformation from a compassionate and sincere father figure to Paul shortly after his arrival into a completely manic zealot worshipping every grain of sand beneath Paul's feet in his wake by the film's end, further worsening the fervent control Paul has over the Fremen as he becomes his willing right hand with his fundamentalist beliefs. In fact, Stilgar's consistent fanaticism following his obsession to see Paul embrace his seeming "messianic" nature is probably the sharpest knife that keeps digging into Paul's side and encouraging him to become the Lisan al Gaib until he finally accepts his horrible destiny, showing how far dogmatism can change someone empathetic and respectful of others to being to a mindless zealot leading the charge according to his prophet's will, even if said charge leads to the death of billions, without batting an eye.Stilgar: I don't care what you believe! I believe.
- Timothée Chalamet's performance as Paul once he goes Dark Messiah is genuinely alarming, he swings between between eerie serenity and explosive feral rage (in a very Harkonnen style) on a dime. The scene where he openly claims the title as Fremen's Prophet is harrowing, he starts by refusing to kill Stilgar and take his place as a chief which seems kind and noble but when the Fremen out of respect for his growing legend try to explain why this has to happen he explodes, screaming that none of the Fremen, perhaps not all of the Fremen together, can challenge him. When this enrages even the fanatical southern Fremen to near violence against him Paul starts acting outright demonic, ominously describing himself as a thing the Fremen's parent's warned them about like a boogeyman or mythological monster out of the End Times and singling out random member of the crowd to who he relates information (how the man's grandmother prayed as a child and how she came by an injury long before Paul set foot on the planet) that he should not know. After the initial shock the Fremen fall to their knees in worship of this new seemingly crazed Paul, perfectly capturing why their embracing of this ideology is a bad idea.
- The worst part is that, as horrible as Paul's ascension will be, it’s still most likely the best possible outcome. Paul's hesitation to take up the mantle is not shared by his enemies- the Harkonnens still slaughter his people, and we finally see what the Bene Gesserit meant in Part One by "other prospects" when Margot seduces Feyd-Rautha in order to have his child. If Paul doesn’t become the Kwisatz-Haderach, someone else will. Potentially someone worse.
- It gets even worse: if you're familiar with the story of Paul's son, Leto Atreides II, and the "Golden Path" he has formulated, you realize that the alternative to the Jihad is, in the long run, the extinction of the human race.
- At long last, the question voiced out by Chani in Part One is finally answered. "Who'll be the Fremen's next oppressors?" The answer? The Lisan al-Gaib of House Atreides. The mother and the son. The worst part of it all? The Fremen didn't even realize they were being oppressed, or enslaved. Only Chani could see the truth, yet she was ostracized by her fanatical peers for daring to question their dogmatic beliefs.
- The ending from Chani's perspective. What does it feel like to be the only sane person in a sea of madmen worshipping a single being? And watch as that being is sending them onto a universal war? And being completely and utterly powerless to stop it? If you are familiar with the book, the billions of victims of the Holy War came from both the Fremen and the Houses.
Alia: "Mother, what is happening?"
Jessica: "Your brother attacks the great houses. The holy war begins"
Jessica: "Your brother attacks the great houses. The holy war begins"
