Dune: Part Two ending spoilers follow.
With Dune 3 already on the way, fans are looking for all the clues left by the ending of Dune: Part Two in order to know what happens next.
What does that last scene really mean? What role will Anya Taylor-Joy's Alia Atreides play in the story? Do Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) end up together? Is Chani pregnant at the end of the sequel? Is Paul Atreides set to become evil?
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Here we try to find some answers to those burning questions.
The ending of Dune 2 isn't the heroic triumph that you might have expected, that's for sure, as Paul gets his much-desired revenge against the people who killed his father and a galactic war starts in Arrakis.
The sequel (which is one of the highest-grossing and best movies of 2024) completes Denis Villeneuve's two-part adaption of Frank Herbert's Dune. As Villeneuve planned, this is now the middle part of a trilogy with Dune 3 adapting Herbert's sequel Dune Messiah.
As such, Dune 2 ends on an ellipsis more than a full stop, with Villeneuve also making a notable change to the book when it comes to Paul and Chani which could leave you wondering about their future.
So let's delve into Dune 2's ending to address what's next for Paul.
Major spoilers ahead.
Dune 2 ending explained: What does the Dune 2 ending mean?
After refusing to go south for months due to his apocalyptic visions, which suggest the galaxy will be devastated if he rises to power, Paul gives in.
The newly-appointed Governor of Arrakis Feyd-Rautha has just destroyed Sietch Tabr, home of the Fremen community led by Stilgar, which pushes them to travel south. They are to attend a war council called by the Fremen leaders in order to address the conflict.
Meanwhile, the stories of Muad'Dib (Paul's chosen Fremen name) keep growing in Arrakis and beyond, all the way to the Emperor and his daughter Princess Irulan.
The Emperor seems unbothered, but the princess is wary. "You underestimate the power of faith," she says. Irulan recommends letting the conflict in Arrakis turn into war, so they can arrive afterwards as saviours. Irulan has been trained by the Bene Gesserit, although she doesn't seem to be completely okay with their doing.
The Bene Gesserit's plan has always been to create a powerful bloodline, but they don't like what they cannot control. The Reverend Mother now wants to see the Atreides bloodline terminated (they were getting too powerful and "defiant", she says), and eyes Feyd-Rautha as a new puppet to rule Arrakis for them.
They send one of their own, Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux), to charm the Baron's nephew. Margot seduces him and then reports to the Reverend Mother. "He’s sexually vulnerable," she says, revealing he has some "mommy issues" they can use to control him.
Margot also reveals she is already pregnant, having quickly secured the bloodline in their favour. There is no time like the present!
The Bene Gesserit might have changed their bets, but Lady Jessica is still rooting for her son.
Earlier in the story, a pregnant Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother for the Fremen, drinking a mysterious substance known as the Water of Life. It's poison, so they expect her to die, but instead she survives and imbues strange powers to her unborn baby.
She then travels south to visit the place where the Water of Life is obtained — the substance is collected from small sandworms, which they drown in a sacred pond in order to extract the liquid from their insides.
Later on, Paul arrives at this sacred place and is offered the Water of Life, which will allow him to see. See what? Well, everything!
In one of the visions, he sees her sister Alia as a grown woman (played by Anya Taylor-Joy). She tells him he is not ready to know the truth about their family — they are half-Harkonnen. Jessica is the Baron's daughter, which makes Paul the Baron's grandson.
Paul is unable to wake up from this trance. As the prophecy says, Chani is the only one who can help him. "He shall be brought back from the dead with Spring Desert tears," the prophecy says. As we learned earlier, Chani's secret Fremen name means Spring Desert. So she let her tears run down, commanded by Jessica, and Paul wakes up with a whole lot of information about the past, present and future.
He has a bit of a Doctor Strange in Avengers: Endgame moment – he has seen all of the possibilities the future holds, and there is only one way ("a narrow way through") that will bring Arrakis' liberation – even if it brings suffering to one particular person. More on that later.
At the war council, Paul Atreides finally becomes what is expected of him – a leader, a prophet, a Messiah. He leads the Fremen armies to the last battle for Arrakis.
Increasingly worried about the Fremen revolution, the Emperor travels to Arrakis with his own armies. The Harkonnen panic at his presence and send a message to all the Great Houses, so they can witness what is to happen.
As House Atreides' atomic arsenal (retrieved by Gurney) destroys a big part of Arrakis' capital, Arrakeen, and a group of massive sandworms erupt into the field, the war starts.
In the meantime, all the important people are reunited in the shiny Imperial spaceship, where Paul steps in with his face covered after making his way through the battlefield. He kills the Baron, finally avenging his father Leto, and then meets with the rest of the leaders, revealing his true identity at last.
Paul defies the Emperor, and tells him to fight or choose his champion. Feyd-Rautha offers himself as his fighter. As is tradition, a big dispute among Great Houses must be solved with a knife duel.
Paul wins the fight, killing his cousin. He lets the Emperor live, making him kneel and kiss the Atreides ring. As the winner of the knife fight against House Harkonnen and having secured Arrakis, and therefore its wealthy spice production, Paul gets engaged to Princess Irulan and secures his place as Emperor.
Everybody kneels but Chani, who furiously leaves the room and heads out into the desert as Dune 2 ends.
Do Paul Atreides and Chani end up together?
The end of the movie certainly doesn't leave Paul and Chani's future looking particularly bright.
Earlier in the movie, Paul told Lady Jessica: "She'll come to understand… I've seen it." Let's remember he believes this is the better "narrow way through" among all world-ending possibilities, so he must know that Chani will eventually forgive him.
This is still a slight deviation from the end of the novel as Chani doesn't leave Paul when he has his victory over Feyd-Rautha. Assuming the third movie follows Dune: Messiah, Chani will be back and Paul's comments hint at that.
For Villeneuve, this change makes it a "much more emotional" ending that viewers can relate to.
"He has to do a political move, and it's a feudal world so in order to get power he will take Irulan's hand, but the way he expresses it in the film is much more romantic," he explained.
"I think from Chani's perspective, she is destroyed by the fact that Paul is going towards Irulan, but much more by the fact that he becomes a colonising figure, something he said to her he would never do."
Does Paul Atreides become evil?
Paul might even have bigger worries than whether or not Chani forgives him in the next movie as his actions have also started a bigger conflict.
The Great Houses refuse to acknowledge Paul as the new Emperor. As Gurney puts it, they "refuse to honour your ascendency". Paul simply answers, "Send them to paradise" and Lady Jessica announces that this is the beginning of "the Holy War".
Villeneuve has made it clear in both movies that Paul's actions won't exactly lead to a happier future. We've seen it in the visions and without going into spoilers for Dune: Messiah, it's definitely the start of a dark path for Paul.
For Villeneuve, being faithful to Frank Herbert's intentions was the top priority. He even set out to right some wrongs. "When Frank Herbert wrote Dune, when the book came out, I think he was disappointed," he told Inverse.
"There was something about the fact that Paul was seen as a hero that he didn’t like. For [Herbert], the book was a warning about charismatic leaders and he wanted Paul to be more perceived as a dark figure.
"Frank Herbert didn't want to do a white saviour story. He wanted to do the opposite. In order to achieve that, I made sure that in Paul's dramatic arc and the story, that all the elements were there, I just played with them a bit differently.
"At the end of the movie, you see that Paul made choices that in order to protect some people, he will become what he was trying to fight against. It's very tragic [that he will] lose everything and betray the people he loved."
Is Chani pregnant at the end of Dune 2?
As well as the change to the ending and with Alia Atreides, Villeneuve made one other notable change to the original book.
In the book, Paul and Chani have a son named Leto during his time with the Fremen. Leto is killed when the Harkonnens launch their assault against the Fremen outpost, which we see play out in the movie.
This doesn't happen in Dune 2 and there's no indication that Chani is pregnant at any time, even when she leaves Paul at the end of the movie.
Talking to Inverse, co-writer Jon Spaihts explained that they decided against including young Leto as, in the book, we never meet him and he's only mentioned when Paul learns he's been killed.
"He has grief about it, but has little time for that grief because [he's] in the middle of conducting a war," Spaihts noted. "So the arrival and departure of that off-stage baby barely ruffles the waters of the novel itself, and really would've been a peculiar distraction in the film."
For more on Dune 2, check out:
• Dune 2 review
• Everything you need to know about Dune 3
• Dune 2 makes a major change with Alia
• How long is Dune 2?
• Why Dune 2 fails to address Dune's biggest issue
• Is Dune 2 available to stream?
• Why Dune 2 didn't bring back Thufir Hawat
• Does Dune 2 have a post-credit scene?
Dune: Part Two is now available to buy or rent in the UK from Prime Video, iTunes, Microsoft Store and more.
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Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
