Dune 3 trailer: Robert Pattinson’s first look as antagonist revealed
After witnessing the overwhelming reception of his 2024 space opera sequel ‘Dune: Part 2’, director Denis Villeneuve decided against his original plan of taking a detour from his three-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 seminal book. He decided to finish the story he started in 2021 with ‘Dune’ and began working on the third instalment at once.
On Tuesday, ‘Warner Bros’ dropped the first teaser trailer of ‘Dune: Part 3’, which is touted as an ‘epic conclusion’ to Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ trilogy. The footage starts with happier times when Timothee Chalamet’s ruler Paul Atreides and Zendaya’s Chani are mulling over their future baby’s name. He said if it’s a daughter, he wants it to reflect her mother’s strength. And if it’s a boy? “I would name him Leto. So, he would have the wisdom of his grandfather,” said Chani, referring to Paul’s late great father, played by Oscar Isaac.
But life had other plans for the couple. As the film jumps 17 years forward, we see their worlds change and how. Those up to speed with the book would recall that Paul ditches Chani for Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan to usurp more political power and expand his kingdom. The ruler in him takes over, as the husband and the father take the backseat.
With Hans Zimmer’s haunting score dominating the background, we see bodies fall and decompose and shots being fired across the landscape, as a full-blown war takes off. “War feeds on itself. The more I fight, the more enemies fight back,” Paul tells his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), as Florence’s and Robert Pattinson’s characters are introduced in the trailer. The latter looks unrecognisable, with his silver hair and a lean, mean avatar as Scytale.
“I’m trying my best to protect my family. How did father do it?” asks Paul, as Rebecca gives him much-needed advice: “Your father never started a war.” As Paul goes to war for power and war within for perspective, familiar faces return to chip in their bits. These include his loyal sister Alia Atreides, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who had a cameo in ‘Dune: Part 2’; Javier Bardem’s Stilgar and even Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho, Paul’s mentor, who’s seen getting killed in the first instalment itself.
The twist in the tales comes at the end of the two-minute 29-second trailer when Paul, now sporting a buzzcut, ascends a high dais to address millions of his subjects. “I’m not afraid to die, but I must not die right now,” he said, as if he had one more battle to fight. In the final shot, Chani is seen showing a fleeting glimpse of concern before she charges at a silhouette with a dagger. Is that Paul? Are Paul and Chani at war 17 years after they were planning what to name their baby?
