Dune Part Two is the rare case where I think Villeneuve made specific choices in the second film that are genuinely more interesting than the book.

The book's Paul is a messianic figure who becomes progressively more disturbing. Villeneuve's Paul makes that arc faster and steeper, and the decision to frame it through Chani's perspective rather than Paul's interiority means that we experience his transformation as an external observer would. We see what the believers see, which is charisma, and we see what Chani sees, which is something she cannot follow.

The decision to make Chani's arc a form of resistance rather than acceptance changes what the film is about at a fundamental level. It's no longer a hero's journey with an asterisk. It's a film about what hero worship does to the hero and to everyone around them.

Some purists object to this. I think they're objecting to the right choice. The adaptation problem with Dune was always that you couldn't make the audience love Paul while also making them understand why they shouldn't. Villeneuve solved this by making them watch someone who refuses to.