[This post contains spoilers for Dune: Part Two]
Remember when people were mad about the lack of Zendaya in Dune and director Denis Villeneuve was like “just wait for the second movie”? Well, there was a lot more Zendaya in Dune: Part Two; she’s arguably the second lead, after Timothée Chalamet. But does Chani make it out of the sequel alive?
Spoiler alert, but: yes, Chani doesn’t die. But at the end of the film, she’s mighty pissed at Paul. With good reason. Power (and spice) has gone to Paul’s head. He declares himself the Lisan al-Gaib, kickstarts a holy war, threatens to nuke the spice supplies on Arrakis, and takes Princess Irulan (played by Florence Pugh) as his bride, catching everyone, especially Chani, off guard. The last we see of her, she’s riding a sandworm off into in the desert.
“It is by far one of the most challenging scenes I have designed in my life,” Villeneuve told Uproxx about the sandworm sequences. “I mean, first of all, to create the technique of the Fremen? That was not really described in the book. I had to come up with a strategy. How to approach a beast like that. How do you approach a sandworm without being crushed by it? How do you jump on a sandworm? What was the Fremen approach to master the beast? And how will we see Paul? Having some intuitive skills, but still being a bit clumsy because this is the first time? How to see the power, and create something edgy.”
Dune: Part Two is out in theaters now. It rules.