Jodi McMaster

(Possible spoilers ahead) The long “Lawrence of Arabia” shots should have been shortened for pacing, and they did a terrible job with Jessica, who never comes off as the badass she should be. And no matter how much I like Zendaya, there were far too many shots of her looking soulful in Paul’s dreams (which were far too frequent and involved both for pacing for the movie and for this part of the story). Where was Princess Irulan? And Shadout Mapes was robbed. However, Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho was completely on point and mesmerizing (despite the missing facial hair and eyeliner). Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, and Stellan Skarsgard were also great in their roles. The mentat Piter was deftly done by David Dastmalchian, but there wasn’t enough screen time for him. Dave Bautista’s Beast Rabban Harkonnen was perfect, as was Chang Chen’s Dr. Yueh. I liked that they didn’t rush the Caladan scenes; however, the same care was not lavished on the Atreides governance of Dune. I was annoyed they cut the garden scene, the bit about the rags for the poor, and the reception. However, I really liked changing Liet-Kynes to a woman’s role, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster was great in the role. And why, oh why, were the major scenes with the Fremen done on the doorstep of the sietch instead of inside, particularly the fight? That was very weird. There also wasn’t enough time for you to grow to hate Jamis, but I can justify that choice if you’re trying to emphasize the difficulty for Paul. So I’m on the bubble, although the portrayal of Jessica was about enough to turn me off. When I first read Dune in 1980 between my freshman and sophomore years of college, there were so few major female characters that were able to take care of themselves with no help from a guy that Jessica stood out as a strong, capable, take-no-prisoners kind of gal, and trying to show her inner turmoil by having her be on the verge of tears almost every scene did her a disservice, as did omitting the scenes that showed her political savvy. I think Rebecca Ferguson has the ability to do Jessica justice; I just worry that she won’t be given that opportunity.