Sneaky Dune 2 Trailer Is Hiding A Massive Family Tree Twist
Who is your (Dune) daddy and what does he do?
The latest trailer for Dune: Part Two is even more epic than the first trailer, promising to do right by the saga of the Atriedes family. For fans of the Frank Herbert novel, there’s a lot to love here, specifically Paul’s fear of becoming a messiah who causes more harm than good. Part of Dune’s ongoing appeal is not just its strength as a sci-fi novel, but also as a novel about children and parents, a book that digs into how one generation deals with the baggage of their family heritage. In the trailer, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) reminds her son Paul that “your father didn’t believe in revenge.” But, what about Jessica’s father? What does Paul know about his own family tree? Possible spoilers head!
There are a lot of cool book twists that the trailers for Dune: Part Two have hidden. One of those twists involves Paul becoming a father. Another of those twists involves his baby sister, Alia. If you’ve read the books, you know what we’re talking about, so no need to spoil those twists here. But, perhaps the most interesting twist is the one that the entirety of Dune: Part Two could potentially keep hidden, even in the final film.
Dune: Part Two: second full trailer
At the beginning of the new trailer, Paul says his family has been fighting the Harkonnens “for centuries.” But, here’s the rub: Paul is related to the Harkonnens directly. At the very start of the book we learn from the thoughts of Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam that Paul has a “maternal grandfather who cannot be named.”
Paul later figures out that this grandfather is known other than Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the villain who is responsible for his father’s demise. Yes, for those who have forgotten, Lady Jessica’s father, is the evil Baron, a fact which becomes somewhat pivotal at the end of the first novel, when Alia — Paul’s superpowered baby sister — slays the Baron, saying “I’m sorry, Grandfather...you’ve met the Atreides gom jabbar.”
But, will Dune: Part Two include this twist about the bloodlines of both the Atreides and Harkonnens? In the film Dune: Part One, there are zero overt references to this twist, other than the fact that the Reverend Mother vaguely suggests to Jessica that there are other options in their breeding program that could allow the Bene Gesserit to produce the Chosen One known as “Kwisatz Haderach.” But, nobody outright confirms that the Baron is Jessica’s dad, and therefore, Paul’s evil grandfather.
To be certain, there are a lot of twists and turns coming in Dune: Part Two, and even though the first novel has origins that are sixty years old, we can’t predict everything that will happen in the Denis Villeneuve epic. It’s even possible that the ending of Dune: Part Two could set up a third film that might adapt the next novel Dune Messiah. Still, even with our spice-trance-induced prescience, the future — and past — of Paul’s family in these movies is still very much up in the air.
You can watch Dune: Part One streaming on Max right now. Dune: Part Two hits theaters on November 3, 2023.
