Denis Villeneuve has already cast some of the big roles that are set to appear in the
highly anticipated Dune Part 2, but one character that is yet to be cast will definitely be
more tricky then the rest.
Alia Atreides is the role in question, and based on the story, sppearance and details
of this character, it's definitely going to be an intriguing one to see come to
life in the second part of the Atreides story.
In this video, I'm going to be discussing how Denis Villeneuve and his team will go
about adapting Alia Atreides in Dune Part 2, alongside
some potential candidates of who I would like to see play her.
There will be spoilers from the back part of the original novel, so I would recommend
not watching this video if you are someone who hasn't fully read Frank Herbert's
book yet or if you don't want to know about big spoilers for Dune Part 2.
But before I get into it, if you want to keep up to date on any of
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But without further a do, lets dive into my thoughts on Alia Atreides in Dune Part 2.
So Dune Part 2 is due to begin filming this July, and already, Denis Villeneuve has cast
Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha and Christopher Walken as the
Emperor.
And while the story of the first book and Villeneuve's potential trilogy is focussed
on telling the journey of Paul Atreides in becoming the Fremen messiah and the powerful
Kwisatz Haderach, there's more important roles yet to be added surrounding the overarcing
plot.
Someone else who is crucial to this whole journey is Paul's sister, Alia Atreides.
In the first film we saw a vision of Paul's mother,
Lady Jessica with her currently unborn child and as the daughter of Duke Leto and Jessica,
she is a really important character in later events.
But she's also quite the unique and weird character that poses tricky obstacles too.
Because of her exposure to the Water of Life, a classic scene on it's way in Dune Part 2,
Alia is born as a Reverend Mother, giving her ultra powerful abilities from the moment
she is born.
She also goes on to kill her grandfather, the twisted Baron Harkonnen, with a Gom
Jabbar.
But from birth she is also aware of her ancestors memories, making her essentialy a child with
the mind of an adult and having access to space and time.
Oh, and she can walk a quite a young age too.
Of course, there's a lot that Alia does after the events of the first book and even by the
end of the first story, that being that she no longer looks like a child and physically
looks like an adult.
She still has the memories and personalities of numerous generations of her family, so
really she's multiple characters in one body and has the combined knowledge of both
the Atreides and the Harkonnens.
And later on in Dune: Messiah as Paul goes missing, Alia essentially takes his place
as the power regent of the Universe.
She's one of the characters in Dune that's defined more along the lines of
being good, even though that like her brother, she at times makes decisions that aren't totally
nice.
But when it comes to the first book and eventually Children of Dune, she's one the
players who makes big moves to advance the overall plot and her influence is one that
eventually becomes bigger then her brother's.
As a whole, Alia begins as a quite weird mystery, and
she ultimately ends up being one of the most powerful forces in the Dune universe.
So with the brief details outlined, how will Denis Villeneuve and his team go about adapting
Alia Atreides to the big screen.
Well, like already stated and exemplified in Alia's early
journey, she is a really difficult character to cast because she’s technically about
2 years old during the events of the first Dune novel.
But also, because she was basically born an adult in a child’s body, they'll have do
something about capturing this character in the right way.
For starters she'll have to visually feel seemless onscreen and 2, the performance of
whoever plays her will have to carry Alia's sensibilities along.
I think to start with they definitely have to age her up for Dune Part 2.
If we go back to David Lynch's Dune, we had an 8 year old actress in Alicia Witt and also
a similarly aged Laura Burton playing Alia in the 2000 miniseries.
We know that aging from the second film to the potential third film is
already a difficult prospect, because she goes from about 4 at the end of the first
novel to 16 in Dune Messiah.
But aging her in the Dune Part 2 would make that process a bit easier.
Plus, with Denis Villeneuve already stating that he's going to leave a larger gap between
Part 2 and his Messiah film to allow this aging, it would be a better option on the
whole.
He's currently planning to do a film on Rendezvous With Rama in between Dune 2 and 3, so we are
potentially looking at 5 years between Dune Part 2 and the third film releasing.
So if they cast a slightly older actress for the
second film, say around 8 years old like other adaptations, then it would be more fitting
come Messiah.
With an 8 year old they could use camera trickery and light visual effects to
make it more seemless too, so I think there are ways around this issue.
Still, casting is going to be a difficult thing to pull off because
you'll need an actress possibly around 10 years old that can for one, look younger,
and 2, act like an adult in a child's body.
I think it would almost be impossible to cast an age
accurate version for the second film, because then in roughly 5 years time they've got to
play a 16 year old.
Let alone at such a young age, pull off the complex character that is Alia
in talking like a grown adult.
Many have suggested that they just do some sort of CGI trickery or de-age her using a
character model.
Could this work, maybe, but I don't think it would
be the best choice in Denis Villeneuve's more realistic adaptation.
Where many filmmakers today would capture a lot of Dune in studio sets or on a green
screen, Denis actually took the whole team out to Wadi Rum dessert and other
locations to film as much as possible in camera with the actors.
So he's going to go for something as real as he can, yet try his best to
stay faithful to the character of Alia.
So yes, I think the best choice would be to just get a child who’s around 8-12 and use
some sort of camera trickery in a similar way to what they
did for instance with the Hobbits in middle earth.
May not be totally accurate, but when you start using too much CGI it can get really
messy.
And I think Denis knows that himself.
But I guess saying that, Denis has used a lot
of visual effects in previous sci-fi endeavours and made them look great.
If you remember Blade Runner 2049, they literally created a cgi
enhanced model of Rachel from the original film, and while you could tell that is was
cg, it did look really impressive considering the gap between the two films.
So overall, the main thing to keep in mind is that Villeneuve is
going for an accurate as possible adaptation, and this might likely involve aging Alia up
and making adjustments with the way they film her
to create an appearance that is more like the age we know from the second half of the
original book.
I think that would make sense and Villeneuve is quite known for using filmmaking
methods that play with perception in the most realistic way possible.
The visual effects, costumes and sets in his films are often seemless, so casting an actress
that's a little older but looks younger would honestly be the best
way over playing too much with cgi.
So who could they cast as Alia in Dune Part 2.
Well there are different options when it comes to early fancasting that I would allign with,
and because this is a trickier role, the filmmaker might even have to pick someone
who's bit more unknown and could have shined in auditions for the role.
However, the current young actresses of greater popularity that come to
my mind include Violet McGraw from the Haunting of Hill House, who also played alongside Rebecca
Ferguson in Doctor Sleep, Brooklynn Prince from the Florida Project, Lexi rabe from
Avengers Endgame and Godzilla King Of The Monsters, Lilly Aspell from Wonder Woman,
and then also Julia Butters from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
Some of these actresses like Julia Butters for instance are a bit older then
the targetted 8-12 years age range I mentioned before, but I think they could quite easily
resemble someone younger or have the acting potential to maybe pull it off.
If Denis Villeneuve does decide to go a little bit older there are considerably more options
too.
Casting this role is already incredibly difficult and it's
hard to find an actress of a certain young age that can play all the mindbending characteristics
of Alia.
What we do know is that Denis will have to keep Dune Messiah in mind when
it comes to this casting and that if the methods surrounding her capture or performance in
Dune Part 2 are successful, then it will spring much more confidence for the future of this
character on the big screen.
I can't wait to see what they do and as I've listed, there are many directions they can
take with her.
But that was my video discussing how Alia Atreides could be adapted in Dune Part 2.
Denis has got a lot of things to consider when adapting the new characters in his second
film, but I wanted to address Alia in a topical video,
because I honestly think that she will be one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.
She's crucial to end of the book and the later books that
follow, and while this is Paul Atreides story, getting Alia right will make the end of this
second film feel like the perfect springboard into whatever is done next in the Dune universe.
We know that Denis wants to adapt Messiah to round out his trilogy and having all the
elements and characters done well leading into that, will create a great landscape for
the future of Dune with other projects.
Also, I'm just really interested to see what his take on this iconic character will be.
Like I was saying, hopefully she's not brought to life with overly done
cgi, and I think with Denis being a filmmaker who strives to capture things in the most
realistic way he can, I'm quite positive he won't go down that road.
But then again, even if he does opt for that, he'll likely do it in a
seemless way.
Think about how well he visualised the sandworms and even enhanced the locations using realistic
visual effects in the first film.
We can only wait and see, but I think that based on how Denis Villeneuve and his team
have adapted other elements of this world so far in a pretty great way, then we are
hopefully in safe hands when it comes to the newly introduced
characters and aspects of the second film.
But let me know down below in the comments section what your thoughts are towards how
they will go about adapting Alia in Dune Part 2
and are you excited to see this adaptation's take on the character.
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