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Notes -
Here’s my gripe with the way Chani is portrayed in the movie. In the movie, she just seems to straightforwardly hate Paul. She starts out as scornful and dismissive, is immediately suspicious of his political motives, which then curdles into hatred. She refuses to cry for him when she thinks he’s dead (Jessica has to force her to) and is even about to try and kill him just before he declares himself the Lisan al-Gaib. It’s so consistent and intense that the exactly two short scenes where they’re friendly and in-love seem totally out of place, like they’re deleted scenes made from an earlier draft of the script that the editor forgot to remove. It also totally deflates any of the drama and Pathos we’re supposed to feel about the film’s ending. Why the hell would Paul even consider picking Chani over Irulian? And why would Chani be so upset that she’s not going to spend the rest of her life with the guy she basically thinks is the Antichrist?
Yes, it's very strange. The idea of her being a sort of Fremen nationalist along with her younger friends never really lands, and since that and being into Paul are essentially her only personality traits, it's unconvincing; she only gets to show off the first in one scene where it's little more than complaining Stilgar is old and religious. But I think this was fixable if you added just one scene and slightly changed another: Stilgar should be explaining to Jessica that the traditionalists are waiting for the Mahdi to start the terraforming project, while Chani in a separate scene with Paul can be advocating for starting the program on their own, especially as Paul starts to roll back Harkonnen control.
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