Desert warfare

Brazil held its annual CCXP (think San Diego Comic Con-big) at the end of November / December. The con is one of the big events where studios decamp to release a whole bunch of trailers for upcoming films and bring out their casts to talk about those upcoming projects.

One of the films in this year's lineup was Dune: Part Two, and it seems like it was something of a larger promotional kickoff for the upcoming film: director Denis Villeneuve recently noted that he's been working on a third film based on Frank Herbert's novel Dune: Messiah (the second book in the series), and today, we got a new big trailer for the film.

Villeneuve recently noted that this second film is "more of an action film than the first part. It’s more muscular," and judging from this new trailer, that's something of an understatement. When I re-read Dune over the last couple of years (I finished it in January), I realized how neatly it falls into two parts, and that second half of the book is a huge buildup as Paul and his new Fremen allies take the fight to the Harkonnens after they butchered his family and retook Arrakis for themselves.

There's a lot packed into this trailer: Paul's awakening to his psychic powers, the buildup of that coming war, the political maneuverings from the Emperor: there's a reason why Villeneuve and Warner Bros. split this adaptation into two parts, and I have a feeling that taken together, these two films will really do the novel justice.

The film drops March 1st: I'll definitely be in line for it when the time comes.