DUNE Page #19

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They take the packet which Yueh had given the two spice searchers, and get out of the car.

EXTERIOR:
DESERT NEAR SOME ROCKS.

Jessica and Paul, carrying the packet, run as far as the rocks. Behind them, a mountain of sand can be seen moving. Jessica and Paul reach the rocks.

An enormous hole opens under the vehicle, and sucks it in. There is nothing left. The mountain of sand moves away.

Jessica and Paul open the packet. There is a large plastic bag, some water bottles and a tape-recorder. They turn on the tape-recorder.

Voice of Yueh:

…when you hear my voice, the Duke and I will already be dead. Now Paul Atreides is the new Duke and lord of Dune. If my plan fails and Vladimir Harkonnen is still alive, I hope they will survive to avenge the Duke’s death. That way, my suffering will not have been in vain.

Paul takes the ducal ring out of his pocket and puts it on his finger.

PAUL:

My father is dead.

JESSICA:

Yes.

PAUL:

He never denied the trust he had in you. He loved you more than himself and his only regret was not to have made you Duchess.

Jessica begins to sob. She tries to stop but can’t.

JESSICA:

It’s silly to waste water...

Jessica tries violently to stop from weeping.

PAUL:

My father hid some atomic bombs. I know where they are.

JESSICA:

What can you do alone?

PAUL:

I’ll find the power of the desert.

JESSICA:

The Fremen.

PAUL:

We’ll sleep by day and travel by night.

They open the plastic bag, bury the metal stakes, make fast the ropes, open a valve and blow up a transparent plastic tent. At the end of a wide tube is a contracting entrance. Paul and Jessica, carrying the water-bottles with them, crawl along the tube as far as the main bedroom. They sit down in a meditation position, their eyes closed.

EXTERIOR:
DESERT - NEAR THE GOVERNMENT PALACE.

Halleck is in chains, dying of hunger. His lips are swollen and torn, his skin red and covered with blisters. Beneath the sunshades, the eight Harkonnen soldiers are fanning themselves in despair.

A soldier tries to drink a trickle of water from his water-bottle, but in vain. The soldier curses, comes to a decision, draws his sword and goes towards Halleck to kill him.

An arrow runs through his throat.

Daggers and arrows exterminate the seven other soldiers. A group of smugglers emerges, led by Esmer Tuek, who puts a water-bottle to Halleck’s mouth.

Halleck begins to tremble convulsively.

After he is untied, a woman covers his whole body with grease and puts a silk coat on his back.

Halleck has become mad. Tuek presents him with a gleaming new balisette, and plays on the strings.

Halleck immediately reacts. He takes the balisette, drops down sitting on the sand, plays ... stammers a few words... becomes silent.... and then with bare hands, without worrying about pricking himself, he takes some cactus leaves and puts them into the balisette.

EXTERIOR:
DESERT NEAR SOME ROCKS.

It’s night. On the horizon the two enormous Dune moons can be seen emerging, one green and the other orange. Everything bathes in a green-orange light, seeming to protect two shadows.

Paul and Jessica roll up their plastic tent. The engine of an ornithopter can be heard.

PAUL:

The Harkonnen.

Paul and Jessica hide among the rocks. An ornithopter appears, bearing the Harkonnen coat of arms. They throw out a box which breaks open as it falls on the rocks, just where the desert begins. The limbs of Leto Atreides scatter over the sand.

The ornithopter moves away. Paul and Jessica run up to the remains.

They both hold on to each other and, turning round, look with horror at the remains surrounding them. They fall to their knees.

Jessica picks up the Duke’s head, respectfully, religiously, takes the sand off it and puts it on the ground, then takes the abdomen and arranges it under the head. Jessica and Paul both arrange the legs, then the arms; the body has been restored. Jessica, kneeling in front of Leto’s feet, tells Paul imploringly.

JESSICA:

Let me change death into life.

Paul walks away and sits on the top of a small hill, turning his back to her. Jessica undresses and lies on the Duke’s body.

Paul begins to feel a change in his sense of perception: a host of images pass through his mind. Fugitive pieces of the future. Flags bearing the Atreides colors, flames, words, a Fremen yelling fanatically, ships exploding, sand worms, and faces (a rapid montage of scenes from the second part of the film).

The visions come on with hallucinating speed. Soon Paul begins to see all the dead bodies of the future, strangled, shot, stabbed, burned and hanged, stamped on, eaten by wild animals, buried in the sand, rotted or devoured by a giant worm, then the images begin to go back towards the past (montage of fragments of the film’s first part).

Then, a gigantic blue egg coming out of the earth and bursting into a field of spice.

Paul sees himself, his eyes completely blue. The vision comes to an end. Paul moans, taking his head between his hands.

PAUL:

I’m a monster, a freak!

Paul runs to his mother, takes her by the arm and tears her away from his father’s body. He sends her rolling in the sand, then digs with his hands, buries the remains and covers them over, shouting.

PAUL:

You didn’t want a son. You wanted a Kwisatz Haderach. A Bene Guesserit male. What did you do with me? Time is there, within me, and it doesn’t stop. I’m at the crossroads of everything possible: the present, the future, and the past. I’ve died an infinite number of times, and I was born, and I am also emptiness filled with shadows... with heavens... with hells... you’re already dead...I set the galaxy alight... Now, you are carrying in your stomach a piece of my father’s flesh, which you will transform into life to bring a daughter into the world, my sister, here, on Dune itself.

The Fremen will pick us up... the spice will enter our bodies and will bind us forever to this sand. We shall stop thinking about revenge, because you and I are Harkonnens. You are the daughter of Vladimir Harkonnen. The Baron is my grandfather. He was once attracted by a woman, and she was your mother. We shall have blue eyes... We shall steal water from the dead... you and I will be mingled into a single being... I’m not Kwisatz Haderach... I’m something different. I am the unexpected; I am the end of the Galaxy.

Paul hides his face in the sand. Jessica helps him up and wipes his face.

JESSICA:

The Fremen will pick us up...

PAUL:

Yes, they’ll call me Muad’Dib, he who shows the way... Now let me weep for my father...

Leaning on Jessica’s arm and breast like a child, Paul begins to sob.

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