It was a visual spectacle and refreshingly it lived up to and beyond the hype.
However, for me there was a niggling itch through the movie. Something about Chani's character that bothered me and only grew as the movie progressed.
I googled to see if others shared this feeling, all I could find was praise for the character. However there was consensus that she was written very different from the book.
I finally found an article that helped describe the disconnect I felt with Chani
The following is not my writing and all credit is given to Kara Kennedy - " ...Herbert's novel Dune, Chani has a range of roles and avenues of strength, influence, and power. She becomes Paul's love but begins as the young woman who introduces him to a foreign desert land in his visions and the one who guides him as he integrates into the Fremen community. She is a fierce young fighter as well as a religious leader in her role as Sayyadina, standing apart from Paul to oversee the cultural rites. She is a young mother who finally wins the approval of her child's Bene Gesserit grandmother, Jessica, and saves Paul from a long coma. She is wise enough to understand the political necessities of Paul legally marrying a princess and trusted by him to negotiate the marriage contract.
Chani's attachment to Paul is an important part of the story, but it does not reduce her to being a simple, one-dimensional female character. Chani is an essential window into Fremen culture. Her multi-faceted character challenges stereotypes about women of faith and women in non-Western cultures that continue to be debated about in the real world.
Meanwhile, the films-Dune: Part One and especially Dune: Part Two-make substantial changes to Chani's character in the name of making her more independent, which end up making her more stereotypically masculine. She is mainly a fighter who has a fling with Paul. She is not a mother and not a religious figure, instead rejecting any association with religious beliefs or practices. She is almost a second Jamis except that she has a brief romantic entanglement with Paul.
Chani's disavowal of the religious elements in her culture arguably represents a contemporary, Western, cynical view taking over the story; that religion must be purged to empower the individual, to free women from their shackles. This change in Chani's character appears to be intended to make her more free and complex, because she's not a follower and she doesn't believe. She can be dismissive of Paul and sees little to learn from him. Their relationship is then not a mutual exchange, a partnership, but something she has to turn aside from to be independent.
The underlying message is that if Chani were a woman of faith like in the book, she couldn't be an interesting, complex character, just a follower who's oppressed. The takeaway is that the Fremen's religious system is bad because it was influenced by outsiders. That faith makes people weak and that being a fighter and killer is preferable to being like the women who live in the sietches, wear headscarves, and discuss religious ideas, or who carry the tribe's ancestors in their bodies.
Chani may also reflect a deeper fear in the increasingly secular West about the power of religion in the 21st century. It is possible that the idea in Dune of an oppressed group militarily united under a religious banner, drawing strength from a belief in something greater than themselves, is still too much to put on screen in an adaptation, especially given the book's Middle Eastern influences. If viewers need to be reassured that not everyone believes, that there is division, that someone is the rational one to turn away from the 'fundamentalists,' then Chani offers this. She is the contrasting perspective, the voice of so-called reason, who questions the religious indoctrination.
But ultimately, the considerable changes made to Chani's character for Denis Villeneuve's film adaptations alienate her from her lover and her culture and strip her of the many roles she has in the book. Any complexity gained by her skepticism is offset by the loss of her influence and authority and her place in her community. Chani's depiction in the films worryingly suggests that the price of being an independent woman means being faithless and alone."
However, for me there was a niggling itch through the movie. Something about Chani's character that bothered me and only grew as the movie progressed.
I googled to see if others shared this feeling, all I could find was praise for the character. However there was consensus that she was written very different from the book.
I finally found an article that helped describe the disconnect I felt with Chani
The following is not my writing and all credit is given to Kara Kennedy - " ...Herbert's novel Dune, Chani has a range of roles and avenues of strength, influence, and power. She becomes Paul's love but begins as the young woman who introduces him to a foreign desert land in his visions and the one who guides him as he integrates into the Fremen community. She is a fierce young fighter as well as a religious leader in her role as Sayyadina, standing apart from Paul to oversee the cultural rites. She is a young mother who finally wins the approval of her child's Bene Gesserit grandmother, Jessica, and saves Paul from a long coma. She is wise enough to understand the political necessities of Paul legally marrying a princess and trusted by him to negotiate the marriage contract.
Chani's attachment to Paul is an important part of the story, but it does not reduce her to being a simple, one-dimensional female character. Chani is an essential window into Fremen culture. Her multi-faceted character challenges stereotypes about women of faith and women in non-Western cultures that continue to be debated about in the real world.
Meanwhile, the films-Dune: Part One and especially Dune: Part Two-make substantial changes to Chani's character in the name of making her more independent, which end up making her more stereotypically masculine. She is mainly a fighter who has a fling with Paul. She is not a mother and not a religious figure, instead rejecting any association with religious beliefs or practices. She is almost a second Jamis except that she has a brief romantic entanglement with Paul.
Chani's disavowal of the religious elements in her culture arguably represents a contemporary, Western, cynical view taking over the story; that religion must be purged to empower the individual, to free women from their shackles. This change in Chani's character appears to be intended to make her more free and complex, because she's not a follower and she doesn't believe. She can be dismissive of Paul and sees little to learn from him. Their relationship is then not a mutual exchange, a partnership, but something she has to turn aside from to be independent.
The underlying message is that if Chani were a woman of faith like in the book, she couldn't be an interesting, complex character, just a follower who's oppressed. The takeaway is that the Fremen's religious system is bad because it was influenced by outsiders. That faith makes people weak and that being a fighter and killer is preferable to being like the women who live in the sietches, wear headscarves, and discuss religious ideas, or who carry the tribe's ancestors in their bodies.
Chani may also reflect a deeper fear in the increasingly secular West about the power of religion in the 21st century. It is possible that the idea in Dune of an oppressed group militarily united under a religious banner, drawing strength from a belief in something greater than themselves, is still too much to put on screen in an adaptation, especially given the book's Middle Eastern influences. If viewers need to be reassured that not everyone believes, that there is division, that someone is the rational one to turn away from the 'fundamentalists,' then Chani offers this. She is the contrasting perspective, the voice of so-called reason, who questions the religious indoctrination.
But ultimately, the considerable changes made to Chani's character for Denis Villeneuve's film adaptations alienate her from her lover and her culture and strip her of the many roles she has in the book. Any complexity gained by her skepticism is offset by the loss of her influence and authority and her place in her community. Chani's depiction in the films worryingly suggests that the price of being an independent woman means being faithless and alone."