News culture Cutting this character from Dune 2 was one of the hardest choices to make according to Denis Villeneuve
Publié le 08/03/2024 à 22:15
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Denis Villeneuve had to make drastic choices to best adapt Dune. The filmmaker is a big fan of the saga of Frank Herbert, but was forced to sacrifice this character to succeed in transcribing his vision of the book in the best possible way.
Adaptation, painful work
Adaptation work is never an easy task. Between faithful transcription of the original work and divergent and completely assumed scriptwriting choices, successful adaptations are largely based on such a balance that Denis Villeneuve seems to have found with his work on the two Dune films. But for the filmmaker, this balance is acquired with a certain violence, at the cost of painful sacrifices, as he explained to d’Entertainment Weekly.
When you adapt, there is always some form of violence towards the original material. You have to change things, bend them, you have to make painful choices.
As we know, the two films feature several important changes compared to the books in order to offer spectators a more digestible story, but also one capable of captivating them for several hours. And sometimes, Denis Villeneuve went so far as to completely delete characters in order to lighten his adaptation.
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A paid sacrifice
With Dune: Part 2, we note the absence of several characters who are nevertheless more or less important in Frank Herbert's books, such as Hasimir Fenring, the husband of Lady Margot Fenring, the character played by Léa Seydoux . But for Denis Villeneuve, one absence in particular deeply hurt him: that of Thufir Hawat, the mentat in the service of House Atréides who we already saw in the first feature film.
One of the most painful choices for me concerns Thufir Hawat. She's a character that I absolutely adore, but I decided early on that I was making a dedicated Bene Gesserit adaptation of her. This then meant that the mentats could not be as present as expected, but therein lies the nature of adaptation.
In the books, Thufir Hawat is imprisoned and then forced to serve House Harkonnen. A whole section of the original story that Denis Villeneuve decided to dodge in order to concentrate on Paul and the Bene Gesserit scheme. A choice that obviously pays off, since Dune 2 is currently a hit in theaters and receives rave reviews since its release on February 28.
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