>For the feature film adaptation, Villeneuve tells Vanity Fair that he’s expanded the role of Paul’s mother Lady Jessica, played by Rebecca Ferguson. She is “even more fearsome than before” in the script, serving a greater role in defending and training Paul, and Ferguson tells Vanity Fair the changes were for the better, stating that “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now.”
>Another major change involves the character of Dr. Liet Kynes, who in the book is an imperial Planetologist and serves as an independent broker on the planet of Arrakis. In the book. Dr. Liet Kynes is a male character, but in Villeneuve’s version she’s a woman, played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster. The actress tells Vanity Fair that Villeneuve gender-flipped the character because of the story’s lack of female characters.
>For Villeneuve, this 55-year-old story about a planet being mined to death was not merely a space adventure, but a prophecy. “No matter what you believe, Earth is changing, and we will have to adapt,” he says. “That’s why I think that Dune, this book, was written in the 20th century. It was a distant portrait of the reality of the oil and the capitalism and the exploitation—the overexploitation—of Earth. Today, things are just worse. It’s a coming-of-age story, but also a call for action for the youth.”
