Warning: Includes SPOILERS based on the early events of Dune Messiah, which may impact Dune: Part Three!
Wow, those Dune: Part Three posters really capture the feeling I’d hoped for in a Messiah adaptation. Paul Atreides and Chani appear older and more rugged… check! Alia is covered in blood and ready for action… check! Robert Pattinson is playing another weird little guy… check! Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan is covered in clay and looks like Emma Stone in Bugonia… che—wait a second… What?
From where we left off in Dune: Part Two, there’s been a 17-year jump, and there are some pretty drastic character differences in these posters that can be explained. For example, Paul is suffering from the existential burden of being a warmongering tyrant far more ruthless than Hitler and Genghis Khan combined (this is a real thing in the book), so he has some dark bags under his eyes, to say the least. Irulan doesn’t undergo a notable appearance change in the novel, and it’s hard to explain what this bed of makeup is, exactly. Dune fans are curious.
What’s the Deal With Princess Irulan’s New Look?
Denis Villeneuve is no stranger to making changes to his live-action Dune mythos. This is the path any great filmmaker must take to bring a renowned speculative fiction adaptation to life, and any alteration of Frank Herbert’s material is a weighty decision with calculated reasoning. To give Irulan such a shocking, questionable appearance in a poster indicates a narrative purpose, yet there’s no clear answer in the source material to explain what appears to be a mud mask.
This leaves only theorization. While fans online joked that the character was simply wearing a facemask for skin care purposes, or had applied far too much sunscreen for the Arrakis heat, Florence Pugh herself took to Instagram to share a comment on her story, saying, “Check out why Irulan has a clay mask in Dune 3.” It seems the actress was prepared for the confusion, though the vague response doesn’t offer much aside from confirmation that there is a distinct reason for the additional makeup.
The most common theory, as of the current footage, suggests that Irulan wears this mask as a cover to prevent her appearance from being stolen, tying into Robert Pattinson’s new character, Scytale. Irulan, Scytale, and a couple of other devious individuals gather to form a merry band of insurrectionists against Paul Atreides, disgruntled with his rule for various reasons. Scytale is a member of the Bene Tleilax, also known as the Tleilaxu, a group of genetically modified humans who pursue methods of genetic engineering to assert power in the galaxy.
One such method is shape-shifting, through the development of engineered humans known as Face Dancers. Scytale’s ability to capture the likeness of other human beings makes him highly dangerous as an assassin and political schemer, making him one of the primary foes to Paul Atreides in this story. Importantly, shape-shifting in Dune isn’t limited by sex. Scytale could, in theory, replicate the physical appearance, voice, and even the character of Irulan, which wouldn’t be detectable by anyone but a highly advanced Bene Gesserit.
Face dancer abilities are featured in HBO’s Dune: Prophecy, a prequel to the Dune films.
A simpler way to examine it is that it’s a cover to prevent her from being identified at all. Either way, it would be a deviation from the source material and is sure to raise more questions as we get closer to the film. There’s another scene in the trailer where she maintains her standard look from the previous movie, albeit with shaved hair. For some, this is another needless change in a continuously shifting adaptation. To others, it’s just another point of curiosity to speculate on before the film releases. Perhaps she’s mirroring a Harkonnen. Perhaps it’s residue from the aftereffects of a stone burner. Perhaps it’s actually to protect her from Arrakis heat. Perhaps… we’ll just have to wait and find out in December.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
