The biggest ways Dune Part 3 differs from the book — for better and worse

The trailer for Dune: Part Three, director Denis Villeneuve’s epic climax to his sci-fi movie trilogy, has dropped, and the next movie looks just as spectacular as the first two. Maybe Dune: Part Three will finally net Villeneuve and his collaborators some of the Oscar gold that eluded them with Parts One and Two.

These movies are based on the Dune novels by Frank Herbert. The first two movies covered 1965’s Dune, and followed Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he transformed from the scion of a noble house into the leader of the desert-dwelling Fremen people on the planet of Arrakis. Dune: Part Three will adapt 1969’s Dune Messiah, which takes place several years into Paul’s reign as the Emperor of the Known Universe.

Whenever a book gets adapted for the screen, some things are going to change. Dune: Part Three is no exception, but are the changes for better or worse?

Dune: Part Three is “action-packed” and “a thriller”

Dune: Messiah is one of the quieter books in the franchise

Speaking to press at the trailer premiere, Denis Villeneuve had some interesting things to say about how Dune: Part Three differs from the first two films. “If the first movie was contemplation, a boy exploring a new world, and the second one is a war movie, this one is a thriller,” he said. “It is action-packed and tense. More muscular.”

This is an interesting way to describe an adaptation of Dune Messiah, which is widely considered one of the more sedate books in the series. The story starts as the Fremen are waging a genocidal war across the galaxy on Paul’s behalf, but we don’t see any of it happen in the book. A number of conspirators gather to try and push Paul off the throne. A new faction, the Bene Tleilax, resurrect Paul’s teacher and friend Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) as a ghola, a kind of clone the Bene Tleilax have modified to do their bidding. There’s a lot of scheming and plotting in Dune Messiah, and certainly some points where the action spikes, but if the movie sticks close to the book, calling it “action-packed” is curious.

It’s possible they’ve added in some action scenes to spruce things up. In fact, we can glimpse one in the trailer.

More action for Chani

These are professionals. Do not fight on the back of a sandworm at home.

Towards the end of the trailer, we see what appears to be Paul’s partner Chani (Zendaya) standing on what appears to be the back of a sandworm, staring down a couple of dudes with a knife in her hand.

Chani is not involved in any action scenes in Dune Messiah, least of all one where she has a knife-fight while riding a sandworm. However, we can guess what might be going on here. It’s briefly mentioned in Messiah that some rogue Fremen are trying to smuggle a sandworm off of Arrakis so they can produce valuable spice on their own terms rather than Paul’s. We don’t see this happen in the book, but perhaps Dune: Part Three adds a scene where Chani helps thwart this plot, which would give her something more to do and give the audience an action scene to ogle.

Lady Jessica returns

Even though she’s not in the book

Rebecca Ferguson did a fantastic job playing Paul’s mother Lady Jessica in the first two movies. Lady Jessica has a part to play in later Dune books, but is completely absent for Dune Messiah. However, in the trailer, we see her talking to Paul.

Ferguson explained how this came about during a visit to the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I don’t even think [Jessica] was supposed to be in there, and then Denis was like, ‘I need to have one scene.’ And I get one scene,” she said.

So Denis Villeneuve wanted to have Lady Jessica drop in on the movie for a scene rather than go entirely without her. It doesn’t sound like her presence will disrupt things very much, and Ferguson is a charismatic actor, so I’m fine with this.

We see Paul’s grown children

They’re only babies in the book

Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho in Dune: Part Three

In the trailer for Dune: Part Three, Paul and Chani discuss names for children they may have: Ghanima if it’s a girl and Leto if it’s a boy. In Dune Messiah, the couple do indeed have children named Ghanima and Leto. They’re born right near the end of the book, so we only see them as babies. However, we know that Leto and Ghanima will appear in Dune: Part Three as teenagers, played respectively by Nakoa-Wolf Momoa (son of Jason Momoa) and Ida Brooke.

It’s possible that Paul only sees the teenage Leto and Ghanima in a vision, much as he saw a vision of his grown-up sister Alia — then still in the womb — played by Anya Taylor-Joy in Dune: Part Two. It’s also possible that Dune: Part Three could end by skipping some years ahead and showing us Leto and Ghanima when they’re older. That would set up a movie based on the 1976 book Children of Dune, where they’re the main characters.

The Spacing Guild is still absent

We demand space-faring fish freaks

There are a lot of factions in this story: the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax, the Mentats, House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Corrino, etc…it’s a lot to fit in, and thus far Villeneuve’s Dune movies have largely left out one important player: the Spacing Guild. Responsible for all interstellar shipping and travel in the Dune universe, the Spacing Guild makes use of Guild Navigators, people who have ingested so much spice that they’re capable of safely steering spaceships through folded space…at the price of mutating their bodies so they look like giant fish people floating in tanks. Director David Lynch, who lived for this kind of strangeness, made sure to include a Guild Navigator in his 1984 movie adaptation of Dune, above. Villeneuve’s rebooted Dune movies may be better, but at least Lynch’s version is weirder.

In Dune Messiah, a Guild Navigator named Edric is part of the conspiracy to topple Paul as emperor, but we don’t catch any glimpses of him in the trailer. We haven’t seen any Guild Navigators in these new Dune movies, which is a shame, because they’re an important part of the mythology and it would be fun to see how a visually inventive guy like Denis Villeneuve would depict them.

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For better or worse?

Some of these changes are disappointing, but none of them seem fatal to the story. Villeneuve changed a good number of things about the first book in Dune: Part One and Two, and both of those movies were excellent, so he’s earned the benefit of the doubt.

But if these changes put you off seeing Dune: Part Three, you can always get a ticket to see Avengers: Doomsday instead, which will be playing one theater over when both movies release on December 18, 2026.