The first advance screening for general audiences was on February 25 in IMAX cinemas. This thread is for people who have seen the film to discuss ahead of the official release on March 1.
SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM AND DO NOT WANT TO GET SPOILED, STOP SCROLLING AND GO BACK NOW.
Mods, please let me know if this is appropriate and feel free to remove if not.
Alia is a tough character to film, not many child actors that can pull that off, so the choice to keep her in the womb is one I’m okay with. As a consolation, they do show her in Paul’s future visions, which is a power of Alia’s you only see with her and no other prescient in the series–the ability to leave future memories and messages for another oracle.
One line of concern from part 2 is Reverend Mother Mohiam’s admission to Irulan that the BG were behind the Atreides destruction, not the Emperor. It conflicts with Mohiam’s ask in part 1 to the Baron that Jessica and Paul be spared. I think the writers for the films added Mohiam’s line in part 1 to balance Yueh’s role being downplayed (since he largely saved Jessica and Paul), then added the line in part 2 to match the expanding role of the BG as the antagonist, and missed it on further passes to see if the characters’ goals still aligned.
I greatly enjoyed part 2, I like what they did with Irulan, Feyd, and Chani. Looking forward to reading the discussions and bringing new fans into the series!