Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three may ostensibly be an adaptation of author Frank Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah, but it’s been clear from the start that this sequel is going to make some major deviations from its source material. That fact is made even more abundantly clear with the release of the final trailer for Dune: Part Three, which teases the role Chani (Zendaya) and her children will play in this massive intergalactic conflict.
How different will this sequel be from the source material, and what role will these Fremen radicals play? Here’s what the new trailer tells us.
Zendaya’s Chani and Her Children
Again, it was obvious from the moment the credits rolled on 2024’s Dune: Part Two that the third and final act of Villeneuve’s trilogy would be blazing new ground for the franchise. That’s because the second film leaves Zendaya’s character in a very different place compared to the books.
Part Two wraps with a disillusioned Chani leaving her lover Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and returning to the Arakeen desert. Unlike Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and his fellow fundamentalists, Chani is not a believer in Paul’s jihad, and she’s heartbroken that he went back on his word not to claim power for himself. But in the original Dune novel, Chani remains by Paul’s side, relishing her role as his faithful concubine even as Paul marries Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) to cement his claim to the throne.
That film set up Chani to play a vastly different role in Dune: Part Three. Rather than being Paul’s lover and confidant, she’s estranged from him. Rather than struggling to conceive a child as Irulan poisons her with contraceptives, Chani is safe from Irulan’s grasp and is raising two children, Leto II (Nakota-Wolf Momoa) and Ghanima (Ida Brooke).
The fact that Paul and Chani have two teenage children during this adaptation of Dune Messiah is arguably an even bigger change to the source material. In the books, Leto II and Ghanima don’t fully come into play until the third novel, Children of Dune. And they fill a very different role there. In Children of Dune, the characters are somewhat younger, and they’re held up by the Fremen as Paul’s rightful successors. It’s a burden neither is quite ready to accept at first, at least until Leto II becomes radicalized during the course of the story and resurfaces as a superhuman crusader ready to finish what his father started.
None of that seems to apply in Dune: Part Three. Here, both children are older and clearly standing in direct opposition to their father. We can only guess as to how characters like Stilgar will react upon learning of their existence. Either way, both have their part to play as Paul struggles to steer his religious crusade and his enemies plot against him.
Stealing a Sandworm
So how exactly do Chani and her children factor into the plot? The final trailer is actually pretty revealing on that front. Previous trailers focused mainly on the initial fight between Chani and Paul post-Dune: Part Two, along with glimpses of the two battling one another in the deserts of Arrakis. But the final trailer confirms one very important detail. It tells us that Chani is actively participating in the plot against Paul.
As in Dune Messiah, Dune: Part Three focuses on an alliance of Paul’s enemies, including Irulan, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim (Charlotte Rampling), and a Tleilaxu face dancer (or shapeshifter) named Scytale (Robert Pattinson). Their goal is to destabilize Paul’s regime and force him to abdicate the throne by any means necessary. Part of that plot involves the resurrection of Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa), who now takes the form of a ghola (essentially a clone with mental conditioning) named Hayt.
The fact that Chani and her children are involved in this plot is a huge change for the Dune franchise. But what is their end goal here? We don’t get the impression that Chani is necessarily trying to kill Paul. She still holds a great love for him, despite Paul being responsible for billions of deaths and untold carnage. She and the twins seem to have a different goal in mind.
The trailer makes it appear that Chani and her Fremen loyalists have been tapped to help steal a sandworm from the desert. We see a massive machine shooting mechanical ropes into the sand, so the goal is probably to lure a sandworm, ensnare it, and take it offworld.
This plot makes sense. Paul may have a massive army of well-trained fanatics, but the real source of his power is that he maintains a stranglehold on the galaxy’s supply of spice. As they say, “He who controls the spice controls the universe.” Scytale clearly hopes to break Paul’s monopoly on spice and give his alliance some added leverage against the emperor.
Whether or not Chani and her children are ultimately successful in their sandworm heist (likely they won’t be), we suspect that their team-up with Scytale and his allies will collapse by the end of the film. Scytale has no compunction about killing Paul, whereas Chani probably only wants him to step down and reunite their family. The real question is whether her ultimate fate will be similar to that of the book. At this point, Dune fans can take nothing for granted with this sequel.
For more, learn why the Game of Thrones movie needs to take inspiration from Dune in order to succeed.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.