"I Am Your Father's Brother's Nephew's Cousin's Former Roommate"
When Choices Don't Matter
Spoiler: Dune 2 discussion follows. Proceed at your own risk.
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Still here? OK.
Coming out of the theater, I thought the last 10 minutes of Dune 2 sucked.
Upon further reflection, I think the problem goes deeper than that.
Imagine the original Star Wars trilogy was exactly the same as you remember, except for one thing. There was no mention of Darth Vader being Luke’s father. The line “No. I am your father.” never gets uttered. There’s not even an inkling of the hint of a relationship between Vader and Luke. Then - at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Luke is being flash-fried by the Emperor - Vader suddenly turns on his former boss and throws him down a shaft, sacrificing his own life to save Luke.
And nobody bothers to explain why.
You’d walk out of the theater completely confused. Why would Vader do that? Why would he betray everything he stood for up to that moment to do something that, in character, made absolutely no sense?
That’s how I feel about the end of Dune 2.
Don’t get me wrong. I read the first books more than three decades ago, and even so far removed from the story, I realized there would be major changes. I came into it expecting to get a condensed version of the story. There’s just too much jammed into the world of Dune to touch on it all. The Mercantile, Navigators, Mentats, the Butlerian Jihad. Something had to go. No - a lot of things had to go even if you wanted to fit everything into two extra-long movies. Even with that, the movie was visually and aurally stunning. The cinematography was top notch.
Somewhere around 2/3 of the way through the movie, though, we see Paul make a choice. A really, deeply important choice. He has been having visions of billions dead and dying from starvation. He has pushed back against those visions, against his supposed destiny, the entire movie. He knows that he will start to walk that path if he goes South, so he resists it. In the end, though, he does go. Reluctantly. Not because he wants to; but because he understands that the Fremen he loves and admires would rather stay and die than leave him behind.
He goes South with the Fremen. He drinks the Water of Life, and nearly dies. When he is revived by Chani, something has changed. He has an angry energy, and seems to have fully embraced his destiny. He does a complete 180º from where he had stood the entire movie. For his whole life, in fact. Now, he’s the Kwisatz Haderach. Billions will die, and despite his initial protestations, he’s apparently… fine with that now?
And nobody bothers to explain why.
Why would Paul do that? Why would he betray everything he stood for up to that moment to do something that, in character, made absolutely no sense?
In the moment where Paul had to make the most significant choice in his life - in fact, the most significant choice in all of human history, up to that point - we have no idea what the choice is.
That leaves so many questions dangling. If he really cared, why didn’t he kill himself, and end the driver for the prophecy? Why didn’t he even make any sort of attempt at diplomacy that would have allowed the emperor to save face and put off the holy war? If he could see the future, why did he even try to marry Irulan and name himself emperor, knowing it would fail?
There’s only one thing I can think of. That despite his persistent visions of billions dying, every other future he could see was worse.
And yet, we’re never shown that. We don’t even get an inkling of the choice that Paul is forced to make, and that nobody else will ever understand. What could have been an incredible twist in the story is never revealed. Those erratic final actions - the duel with Feyd, the confrontation with the emperor, the threat to detonate the atomics over the spice fields - could have been painted as desperate attempts by Paul to rebel in some way against the harsh reality that he sees barreling towards him.
Instead, we get a character that we’ve been sympathizing with turn into the type of person he desperately did not want to be. Not only turn, but manically embrace in a way that is not at all like the person he once was. Something happened to Paul, but we’re not allowed to know what that was. We’ve got no idea what happened to him to drive this drastic change in who he is, and we - and the story - are poorer for that omission.
Will it be revealed in a future movie? Maybe. For now, though, we’re left with a reluctant leader who became a fanatical messiah overnight; and while that may make for good cinematography, it makes for lousy storytelling.
The Business of Writing
A mid-week update on my three major commitments: to write, to edit, and to read.
The Wyrd West story is off! There’s some stiff competition for this one, though - close to four dozen stories, if I recall corrections. I had the honor of reading some of those with the Alpha Mercs, and there’s some truly original stuff in there. However it shapes up, this is going to be a great anthology.
My wife and I have been reading, and reading, and reading stories for the Tull anthologies. We’ve started with the first page or two of each, looking for ones that capture us. I don’t know about her, but there’s a couple of stories I’ve had to tear myself away from halfway through. Well done, folks. Our goal is to have our initial responses out by April 1st. We’re well along on that.
Other Stuff
The LPPA convention was interesting. I think my opening remarks were well received. Shari and I had a good time, connected with a bunch of people, and we will both be delegates to the national convention in May. I had dinner with our new LPPA Chair and another friend the week after the state convention. We talked about many things, some of which might have been politically related. I’m looking forward to doing my part to ensure that the PA Republicans and Democrats find themselves living in interesting times.
Yesterday was my last day of serving on the board for People For Liberty and Home For Liberty. It really was a bittersweet day. While the last two years with them have certainly been challenging, it was time to move on. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from our fellow board members, and I hope to see great things from both organizations in the future.
Late last week, I had an health incident that worried my wife. With good reason, it turns out. We went for a walk around the farm, and I had a bit of tightness in my chest. I put it down to having exerted myself earlier in the day, but Shari urged me to get it checked out. A week later I was up early to take a cardiac stress test, which wasn’t hard, but certainly wasn’t fun. Especially as it revealed that yes, I do appear to have some blockage. The exact diagnosis was a “mildly positive stress test with angina”.
The irony of my last update here proclaiming “I Aten’t Dead” has not escaped me.
So now I am trying to find myself a cardiologist, so I can figure out what this actually means. From what I can tell, it’s serious, but not serious serious, if you know what I mean. Which is a relief. I am not yet at the age where I’m ready for a committed relationship with a cardiologist. Which means that I can take my time - you know, date around a bit, in a cardiologist-oriented way. Which sounds weird, even for me, but there you have it. Age mocks us all, in the end.
See you next Wednesday!
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Entertaining and slightly concerning read.
We just started watching Dune 2... Movie interrupted...to be continued. I enjoyed your perspective.
I'm joining you in the quest for a cardiologist, I'm afraid it's a sign of our time 😉 happy hunting!
Be well!
I enjoyed your perspective on the Dune movie. Please take care of yourself.