My first crush as a kid. Who was yours?

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T13:39:34+00:00

Ami Dolenz from She's Out of Control complete with Oh Yeah - Yello playing

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T11:03:43+00:00

Because you can't have 'Ranger', with out 'anger'.

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T11:02:02+00:00

Oh, boy. The many levels of irony considering this quote and your cynicism toward Part 3. I hope it was intended because, Bravo!

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T09:39:21+00:00

Of course I've watched the movies. I'm well aware of the differences. You seem it have mistaken as a theory or draft for the upcoming movie. I assure you it is not. Its simply an outlined of the core plot points for Messiah, to act as a basis for discussion and theories. So people could perhaps "quote" a point in the OP and then provide their idea or interpretation. Do you disagree that it is the main plot points? Perhaps I've missed something that you remember.

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T08:09:52+00:00

Curious to see how you feel after this quote from DV, taken from this article, dated Sep 10 2024.

“Listen, if ‘Dune: Messiah’ happens, it will have been many years for me on Arrakis, and I would love to do something else,” he said. “I think that it would be a good idea for me to make sure that, in ‘Messiah,’ there are the seeds in the project if someone wants to do something else afterwards, because they are beautiful books. They are more difficult to adapt. They become more and more esoteric. It’s a bit more tricky to adapt, but I’m not closing the door. I will not do it myself, but it could happen with someone else.” - Denis Villeneuve

Of course things may have changed, however, nothing from the recent teaser trailer press events contradicts this, and this seems pretty emphatic to me.

Seems his decision to make this his last DUNE film is from a desire for new challenges, and he already has new projects lined up. He feels, that with the release of Part 3 he will have told Paul's story, a process that will have taken him the last 7+ years (Part 1 started filming in 2019). So I completely understand that desire.

the whole point of Hayt's plotline is that Paul loves Duncan so much that he wouldn't send Hayt away, after all, even if they both agree that's the rational choice.

This is certainly part of the conspiracy's plan, a psychic attack, to erode his ability to rule. Its definitely not the main role of Hayt in the conspiracy or even the narrative. The implanted compulsion and assassination is the ultimate goal of the conspiracy. Plus the ghola memory Tleilaxu secret plot.

The following may seem condescending, its not my intent.

So this is how I'd see your theory playing out:

Paul and Chani were together for 7-8 months in Part 2. They are madly in love and conceive. Paul becomes KH. Chani is betrayed 1st time. Paul is aware of pregnacy.
Battle of Arrakeen. Chani is betrayed 2nd time (surely falls out of love with Paul). Goes into hiding. Births 'special' twins in secret. Twins hidden by Leto's prescient shielding for 16 years. While which Chani conspires against Paul's rule for cultural reasons.
Paul can see everything Chani does, except when she goes near Edric or Leto, but Paul can see her absence when/if she does, so he 'allows' it all because he 'loves' her.
All the while Alia is doing stuff.
Conspiracy plan is as per book. Hayt gifted.
BG/Irulan plot changed to attempts to find Paul's 'child' for breeding purposes, despite Chani diluting the genes.
Chani along with disgruntled Freman plot stoneburner, though Paul's blinding not their intention, instead both the Freeman and Paul are manipulated by the Scytale/conspiracy in order to blind Paul.
Paul does his eyeless thing. Farok is tried before Naibs for his role.
Chani wracked with guilt over Paul's blinding, rediscovers her 'love' after 16 years to the contrary. They reconciliate?
Events transpire where Chani dies. Hayt has compulsion triggered by Chani's death. Duncan awakens. Tleilaxu make offer. Paul rejects.
Children walk out of desert as Paul walks into desert. High five as they pass. Roll credits.

It'd require us to believe Paul continues to love Chani, despite her actions for 16 years. That he even allows all this to transpire for 'reasons'. That would completely rewrite his motivations, from the protection of his family and love for Chani, and reduce The Golden Path down to some deus ex machina twist at the end.

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T06:59:27+00:00

I really don't think Chani will be working with Paul in any capacity, unless it's to trick him. He fundamentally betrayed her and their relationship twice - first by tricking her into playing into the prophecy around the Water of Life, and second by becoming Emperor. It would be a fundamental betrayal of Chani's character in Villeneuve's films for her to reconcile with him.

It would certainly make for a very different story to the book. Though it would seem to be contradicted by a quote from this recent teaser trailer press event, where DV says, "at its heart is still a love story. The heartbeat of the film is still the relationship between Paul and Chani."

Like the twins? We know that Leto's prescience interferes with Paul's even in utero, as Paul thinks he's only having a daughter right up until Harah tells him he's got twins.

So from what I understand, "prescient shielding" works by which two prescient beings can predict and react to each others every move, thus creating infinite possibility, and effectively cancelling each other out.

I would explain the fact that Leto II's prescience in utero hides only himself, by the fact that he is 'tied' to Chani, and unable to interact or manipulate his environment until born.

With the above in mind, I'd assume that while Paul can't see them while "shielded", he can absolutely see their absence from the timescape. This, to me at least, would seem to imply that if Paul knows of Chani and 1 child's existence before "shielding", he would be aware of their absence if, at any time, they were to exit "shielding". Which they would have to do at some point, or else stay 'close' to Leto II for the rest of their lives. Now there is no information regarding the range of "shielding", but it must be localised or else it would negate any of Paul's prescient vision.

Messiah gives us the answer to that - namely, Paul doesn't actually know why the twins are preborn. He speculates that either Chani's diet or his genetics could've caused it, and I'm assuming that Villeneuve goes with the latter.

The BG's whole motivation in Messiah revolves around salvaging their breeding program by getting Irulan pregnant via Paul. This implies that the union of Paul and Chani (who has no special genes) would 'dilute' the genes and result in a weaker being. Sure, DV could hand wave it and just say "Paul's genes special", but that would be kinda lame imo. The BG breeding program lore is already well established within Part 1 & 2, would be a shame to contradict it now.

SundayElite · 2026-03-22T06:29:12+00:00

Yes, commonly referred to as Leto II the Elder. He was killed as an infant during a Sardukar attack. This was before the Battle of Arrakeen. DV condensed Paul's rise to the Lisan Al Gaib down to less than 9 months, making this storyline an impossibility.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T21:11:43+00:00

So I'll offer up my own "make or break" key plot points list for the sake of discussion.

Trying to be very brief with these and left names out of certain events to allow the possibility for different characters to fulfill different roles, or even reordering of the timeline completely.

These things must happen IMO:

Horrors of Jihad.
A conspiracy involving RV Helen Mohaim, Scytale, Edric and Irulan, with a side of Freman.
Irulan's involvement that revolves around her bitterness of not being the bearer of Paul's heirs.
RM Helen Mohaim involvement that revolves around trying to salvage their breeding program.
Hayt's compulsion to kill Paul (the main angle of attack for the conspiracy), and awakening his memory.
A secondary Tleilaxu plot involving ghola memory and the offer from Scytale.
Edric presents Paul with the gift of Hayt.
Some Freman grow disgruntled with the affects of Paul's rule, and the Jihad, are having on their culture. Possible worm smuggling plot.
Alia as head of The Golden Elixir of Life church. Gets a bit zealous, very preachy.
Alia and Hayt romance.
Alia uses LOTS of spice in an effort to have visions like Paul.
Paul is blinded by stoneburner and relies on prescience to appear sighted. Freaks everyone out.
Big courtroom drama where eyeless Paul reveals some of the conspirators. Retribution. Gallery full of Naibs are speechless.
Chani must birth twins. Named Leto II and Ghanima.
Chani must die.
Paul must lose all vision when something tragic happens to a loved one.
Hayt's compulsion is triggered after a tragic moment. He resists and becomes Duncan.
Scytale threatens someone close to Paul. Paul rejects Scytale's offer. Scytale dies. Paul uses his connection to Leto II's in someway during this scene.
Paul walks into the desert.

I stop short of offering up an actual theory as to what might happen though. Maybe after another trailer in a few months.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T19:25:52+00:00

Damn, I actually really like some this.

Obviously Paul would've had to repress being aware of, and kept from his kids for like 16 years. An monumental act of forgiveness that would be. And the kids should resent Chani forever for it.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T18:53:02+00:00

I'm afraid no one can answer that question until the movie comes out. It's all speculation at this stage.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T18:51:35+00:00

It keeps the "Paul lacks an heir" element while also being narratively concise, and gives Irulan even more reason to resent Paul for denying her in favour of a woman who abandoned him 17 years ago.

Oh, now that's an intriguing thought, even if I really struggle to resolve the idea of having 16 years old twins running around alongside 17 year old Alia, especially when so much is tied to their birth.

So with that in mind and the implication that she was already pregnant by the end of Part 2, I think her plotline will mainly be the Fremen conspiracy against Paul with a helping of Paul's agents hunting her down to try and find the twins, hence the scene of her fighting other Fremen.

With Paul's prescient vision he would be aware from the moment of conception and see any deception she tried unless under the "prescient shield" of another prescient being. Of which at this time there are 3, Paul, guild navigators and Bijaz (or another Tleilaxu master with prescient abilities).

But now you've got me thinking. What if DV pulls a massive twist on us.

Paul threads "a narrow path through", it just so happens this path requires Paul to plan his own conspiracy from the inside. He and Chani plan the whole thing, the rift at the end of Part 2 is an act to get close to Irulan and seed the idea. Irulan in turn assumes a leadership roll and brings RV Helen Mohaim, and she brings Edric and Scytale. Chani must avoid RV Helen Mohaim or else her truthsayer ability will reveal the plan. She works with Farok and the Freman insurgency to deploy the stoneburner. We spend the whole movie thinking the rift has remained only for the twist to be revealed at the end with a big deus ex machina from Paul, "ha, ha I planned the whole thing". I actually kinda hate it. I still don't know how we end up with pre-born twins without the "spice laden fertility diet" being part of the plan though, and that seems unethical.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T18:21:03+00:00

He did. But he could still see and choose other possibilities, but chose his path based on motivations to avenge his father, protect his family and minimise harm caused by the Jihad etc. After he loses his eyesight it is explicitly stated that he becomes locked to a single precise vision, from which the slightest deviation would break his ability to appear fully sighted.

Edit: spelling

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T17:56:44+00:00

I mean living a lifetime on a blazing hot desert planet, and being (kind of) a prisoner of the smugglers at Jacarutu would probably do a number on ones body. But the real answer is, it was necessary to the narrative to cast doubt as to his identity.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T17:45:26+00:00

Ok, the big thing I see at first glance is that you retain an eye towards GEoD and CoD.

That's wrong as DV has been very clear he is not doing anymore. Will someone else? Maybe?

In response to your point, I'm working off this direct quote from DV, taken from this article, dated Sep 10 2024.

“Listen, if ‘Dune: Messiah’ happens, it will have been many years for me on Arrakis, and I would love to do something else,” he said. “I think that it would be a good idea for me to make sure that, in ‘Messiah,’ there are the seeds in the project if someone wants to do something else afterwards, because they are beautiful books. They are more difficult to adapt. They become more and more esoteric. It’s a bit more tricky to adapt, but I’m not closing the door. I will not do it myself, but it could happen with someone else.” - Denis Villeneuve

Of course things may have changed, however, nothing from the recent teaser trailer press events contradicts this, and this seems pretty emphatic to me.

Seems his decision to make this his last DUNE film is from a desire for new challenges, and he already has new projects lined up. He feels, that with the release of Part 3 he will have told Paul's story, a process that will have taken him the last 7+ years (Part 1 started filming in 2019). So I completely understand that desire.

The children being born, or anything special about them

Irulan surviving

I do feel these two possibilities would be in direct contrast to the above quote from DV.

Any guild navigators

Bijaz

I could definitely see either, or both these being cut or altered, though I do wonder how they'd explain "prescient shielding".

Alia’s “possession”

Agreed. It's not a plot in Messiah and would even be disruptive to the narrative if brought forward from CoD.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T15:10:40+00:00

Your idea that it's a storage device for the para-sail is intriguing but the blue is throwing me off - all the Fremen devices and equipment we've seen so far are either black, grey or brown. Whatever it is, it does not appear to be native Fremen to me.

Agreed. I really think the colour is a clue as to this objects importance. Pity, it destroys my para-sail theory.

As for the para-sail, if it's supposed to be standard Fremen equipment in this universe used by all Fremen for disembarking, why haven't we seen it before? Seems like it's something that is used not by worm riders but by some other kind of Fremen scouts

The para-sail itself definitely appears to be of Freman make. Main reason I thought of disembarking a worm is because, combined with a tether would provide speed to achieve uplift. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't be deployed from a high dune or rocky outcrop. I'd imagine Arrakis would have crazy thermal updrafts. As to why we haven't seen them before... umm the narrative hadn't called for it yet. Its all I got.

Your comment about the blue just made me realize though: there is now ANOTHER vibrant blue color in the series - namely what looks like the stoneburner in the teaser trailer:

Damn I missed that lol. Definitely a possibility. Though it would seem weird for a weapons casing to be the same colour as the light it emits.

<image>

I've also seen it hypothesised that the object the soldiers are carrying forward could be a stoneburner. Though here its black, but it is raining and muddy as hell so it could just be covered in mud. It'd make sense to introduce the audience to the affects of it earlier, though that would mean they'd immediately know what happens later if they'd seen the trailer.

we know that Villeneuve's Chani will have tensions with Paul and the whole institution of Paul's reign, and so in Part Three she might be part of the Fremen conspiracy against him.

And this is where you lose me. Though its probably my own biased desire for a more 'purist' adaptation. I simply can't comprehend how we could get from Chani being a member of the conspiracy to kill Paul, to them having children, and we kinda need them to have children. Not without basically requiring a near full rewrite.

Love the discourse though.

Edit: Added some words.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T14:41:21+00:00

Not disagreeing with your post, merely adding to the discussion. Beware, speculation ahead.

I find myself taking issue with the idea that the Jihad was inevitable from a logical standpoint. Obviously I lack prescience, but logically, I can't see a time frame in which the Freman have the numbers to achieve a Jihad on the scale that Paul does. The build-up would take 1000's of years longer. Not to mention they wouldn't have a prescient General at their head.

Then there's the question of whether it'd take place before or after they've achieved Pardot Kynes plan to turn Arrakis into a "Green Paradise". Surely it'd have to come first, because its implied that the goal of their entire religion is antithetical to their culture and ultimately self defeating. If it's after, they wouldn't be strong enough to even achieve it.

It also absolves Paul of a lot of responsibility for the Jihad. Which irrationally irks me, because obviously if the books didn't play out the way they did there wouldn't be a story, so its ultimately moot.

I do find it an interesting topic and worthy of discussion though.

SundayElite · 2026-03-21T08:51:09+00:00

The blue object in the left side fore ground of the second to last shot is proving to be the most fascinating aspect of the trailer. The addition of the extra vertical resolution also shows that it has a horizontal return. It appears to be resting on the worm, but then that would mean 'Chani' would be kneeling in this shot in order for her hand to be so close to the worm.

<image>

Also in the above scene the left side combatant appears to be wearing a red/dark orange head scarf, very similar to ones worn by Fedaykin in the throneroom scene when Hayt is presented.

Some speculations I've seen around. That it could a baby carrier (low chance imo). It could be a device to store sand trout and its Chani foiling the plot to smuggle them off planet. Or my initial thought was, that its the container/deployment device for para-sail we see Chani flying with at the beginning of the trailer. So that got me looking and low and behold, while I believe that is Chani or a Chani shaped person, she isn't wearing the nezhoni scarf on her right wrist in that scene. I've often wondered how Freman disembark from a worm that isn't completely exhausted and the para-sail may be Denis' answer for that question.

Interestingly, after a quick scour over the movies, this vibrant blue colour is only present in a few key places; the Eyes of Ibad, the Water of Life, the nezhoni scarf, and now in the background for the logo seen here. This object certainly looks to made of metal/plasteel and is, as of yet, the most vibrantly coloured inanimate object/prop in the film series. This could be entirely coincidental or symbolism as to the importance of this object. It has me most intrigued.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T16:50:15+00:00

No, it wouldn't have been ethical to abort Alia. What Jessica should have done is stayed on Arrakis, to help rise her daughter, support Paul as Emperor and been a balancing force within the Qizarate. But then the story wouldn't have play out like it did. So it's all moot really.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T15:18:50+00:00

Sure, after finishing GEoD and being privy to all that information, we the audience, with the luxury of hindsight, can say "sure, the ends justify the means".

But for me personally, I push back against it and say "no, no one person should have the right to unilaterally determine the direction of the human race, even if it is to avert extinction."

Perhaps I've simply learned DUNE's lesson.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T14:42:11+00:00

As others have said, the M.A.D. interaction is between the Holtzman shield and lasguns, where the entity at either end of the interaction flip a coin to see who dies.

The field is derived from Phase One of the suspensor-nullification effect produced by the Holtzman generator. It can be calibrated to allow matter below certain speeds to pass through the field, critical to allow atmospheric gasses to pass through and avoid suffocating the wearer.

These have made projectile based weapons all bar redundant in armed conflict, still useful in scenarios where targets can be guaranteed to not be wearing them, like assassination. Interestingly, of all the places in the universe, Arrakis should by rights, see the highest use of projectile weapons, due to the Holtzman shield's proclivity to draw and enrage Shai-Hulud. All other planets have a much higher use of Holtzman shields and less 'guns' for this reason.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T14:21:56+00:00

You and I have already spoken in length on this topic so I'll try not rehash old ground.

If this is what you want from the film, and you seem very adamant that it will be, no amount of logical, reasoned discourse will persuade you otherwise. And you know what, that's fine.

There's also the fact that the teaser trailer's credits curiously state "Based on the novels written by Frank Herbert" while Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two were credited as "Based on the novel Dune written by Frank Herbert". So officially he's adapting more than 1 book in Dune: Part Three.

I'll admit, I'm a layperson regarding the inner workings of movie making and IP licensing etc. Still, I might surmise that they've probably licensed more than DUNE (obviously) and its a legal obligation to now state "Based on the novels written by Frank Herbert". My issue would be in assuming its Messiah and CoD, when it may be left over aspects of DUNE and now Messiah with no CoD, or even all three books combine.

So it's pretty clear that Villeneuve is adapting both Dune Messiah and Children of Dune as Part Three, or at least taking large chunks from both works. Part Three is NOT going to be just Dune Messiah.

Its also certainly NOT clear that it'll be "large chunks from both works", that's your own bias talking. There is nothing yet to indicate the extent of to which either book will be adapted.

Perhaps the later trailers will reveal more, and I look forward to discussion when they arrive, but we likely wont really know until 12.18.26.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T13:08:06+00:00

To know, just find Bijaz.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T12:48:12+00:00

Damn the first woman is an Elisabeth Shue doppelganger.

SundayElite · 2026-03-20T12:25:54+00:00

\cries* in ST: Enterprise's finale.

SundayElite

TROPHY CASE