Dune: Part Two Editor Sheds More Light on Paul and Feyd-Rautha's Duel

We talked to Joe Walker about editing some of the big moments in Dune: Part Two.

By Jamie Jirak

Dune: Part Two is the biggest movie of 2024 so far, and it will soon be heading to Max. ComicBook has gotten the chance to chat with many folks who worked on the film, which is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 92% critics' score and a 95% audience score. In honor of the movie's upcoming 4K release, ComicBook spoke with editor Joe Walker about the film. One big moment from the project that came up was the duel between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler). 

"Roger [Yuan], the stunt coordinator, and the actors sort of developed a really – there's a lot of meaning that goes into those fights," Walker explained. "They aren't just scraps. They have the energy of scraps, but there's continuity. In fact, the moment where he looks down and sees the knife in his guts, that's kind of a reference, isn't it? I think to Gurney, one of the initial scenes of Dune 1. There's always a kind of – the character is baked in – the sort of different fighting styles in opposition. And you know, the adeptness of Paul to adapt as a person, which is his survival. He adapts to the desert, and so does his fighting style."

"In the case of that [scene], they shot it, I think, over about four or five days, and I think two cameras at a time with the kind of dawn lighting going on. And, of course, the entire cast save the Baron are there, so there's a lot to cut to that sort of amplifies and ramps up the drama of the story, and not least Paul and Chani and the kind of access between them that Feyd tramples upon," he continued. 

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"[Director Denis Villeneuve] always kind of pays me the most enormous compliment that an editor can get, which is if something works perfectly, he doesn't change it. We change things that aren't working a lot until they work. But in the case of Paul and Feyd's fight, that was pretty much what I showed him in Hungary, a week after he shot it. We were jumping up and down saying ... 'We've got a great ending'" 

Dune: Part Two is now available on Digital and on 4K UHD. Stay tuned for more from our interview with Joe Walker.

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