Dune 2 strip-mines Arab culture more than spice while casting no Arab leads. Souheila Yacoub gets a sidekick role and (spoiler) is summarily dispatched.
Full of Arab customs / names / vocab, Muslim clothes, Egyptian architecture. Florence Pugh in a taqiyah, kurta, zari work. Ferguson in Arab jewelry. Witches in burqas. “Fedaykin” = fedayeen. Islamic carved stone screens.
Padishah Walken = badshah (emperor). (pic not from Dune)
Very weird that the top US sci-fi flick is about a skinny, pale French kid cosplaying the Sunni-Shia split and emergence of the Mahdi.
Not once did I buy Chalamet as a leader, let alone a messiah. Waterboy maybe. Chocolatier, sure. Bardem’s Mahdi? Nah.
Fanatic hype man Bardem had the faithful’s hand gestures down, lol. Such a better actor than Timo Thee Callow Fae.
Fun movie, inventive visuals on the Harkonnen’s planet (b&w, triangular arena, triangle-hatted picadors, grease-bubble fireworks).
But when they get around to desi epics they’ll absolutely cast the palest actors available and relegate desis to background villains and sidekicks.
They love the spice, hate the spicers: Hollywood repeats the history of colonizers.