Tick-tock, the countdown starts now! The final trailer for Dune: Part Three has officially landed, and Arrakis is calling us back. With barely seven weeks to go before Denis Villeneuve’s epic conclusion hits cinemas, we’re getting closer to discovering the fate of the Fremen and, more importantly, finding answers to the questions the previous film left hanging about Paul Atreides. Is anything left of the man he once was?
This time, though, we might want to keep our theories in check. Villeneuve has already shown that he’s willing to take creative liberties with Frank Herbert’s universe. And if the ending of the previous instalment taught us anything, it’s that the desert holds more secrets than even the most devoted bookworm can anticipate.
Perhaps the most intriguing clue in this final trailer is the weight given to Chani and her children in the political (and emotional) storm gathering around the Emperor.
Chani is no longer simply the Fremen warrior standing beside our protagonist, nor merely the woman left behind by his betrayal. She emerges as a key figure in the unravelling of his reign, one who will, hopefully, remind Paul of the man he used to be. And that changes everything. Chani may well become the living reminder of everything Paul has sacrificed on his way to the throne: his freedom and perhaps even his sense of self. But power corrupts, as we all know too well. Just ask the Fremen: what happens when the man who promised to liberate a people becomes the force they must resist?