Dune Part 3 Trailer: When Marketing Gets Meta
- Sofia Cortes Rodriguez
- Apr 19
- 3 min read
If Frank Herbert were alive to see TikTok react to the Dune: Part 3 trailer, I believe he would see the incredible irony in the way audiences are engaging with the trailer. Dune: Part 3 is expected to adapt much of Herbert’s Dune Messiah, the sequel to Dune, which Herbert partly wrote to challenge people who had begun to view Paul Atreides as a hero. The sequel shifts the focus away from celebrating Paul’s rise to power and reframes his story as a warning, stressing the dangers of charismatic leaders and the devastation carried out in their name.
One of the clearest examples in the sequel appears when Paul compares himself to Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler while discussing the death toll of his jihad:
“Stilgar,” Paul said, “you urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with Genghis Khan.”
“Genghis … Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m’Lord?”
“Oh, long before that. He killed … perhaps four million.”
“He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or …”
“He didn’t kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing—a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.”
“Killed … by his legions?” Stilgar asked.
“Yes.”
“Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.”
“Very good, Stil.” Paul glanced at the reels in Korba’s hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. “Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others…”
The moment is particularly disturbing given the fact that Paul treats mass death almost like statistics, scoffing at the number of people these historical figures killed before acknowledging that the violence committed under his rule will surpass them.
What Frank Herbert was generally trying to convey with Paul Atreides’ character is best exemplified in a Waldenbooks interview with David Lynch, director of the 1984 film adaptation of Dune. He explains:
“I seriously considered being a historian, and while I was in the throes of this decision, I came upon the idea that leaders' mistakes are amplified by the numbers who follow them without question. And charismatic leaders tend to build up followings and power structures. And those power structures tend to be taken over by people who are corruptible… and I think power attracts the corruptible.”
When you think about Dune: Part 3 and the marketing perspective, what is the number one takeaway that the grand majority of people have from this trailer? A simple TikTok search for “Dune Part 3” can provide the answer.
A chant with Paul rallying his genocidal army for their jihad across the universe is the main element permeating the mind of audiences anticipating the film after watching the trailer, becoming the centerpiece of countless edits and reactions. I believe half of the viewers are aware of the irony behind celebrating the very representation of what Herbert warned about. Others may not be. And some will most certainly watch the film and place Paul on a pedestal like so many characters before him (think Patrick Bateman, Walter White, etc.). When that happens, it will muddy the discourse about what the film and the novel itself actually have to say about power, and the conversation will shift toward an admiration for the exact type of leader Herbert meant to critique.
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