From Resistance to Political Authority? Legitimating Armed Struggle and the Post-Victory Order in Denis Villeneuve's Dune Films

This article examines how Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024) narrate the relationship between armed resistance, collective agency, and political authority after victory. Bringing Max Weber’s account of charismatic authority into dialogue with Hannah Arendt’s distinction between power and violence, it compares the films’ depictions of imperial rule, Fremen resistance, messianic claims, and Paul Atreides’s accession to the imperial throne. The analysis argues that the films represent resistance as emerging from material dispossession and collective survival, while the second film depicts a contested shift toward centralized authority justified through prophecy, military success, and dynastic claims. Chani’s skepticism provides an internal counterpoint to this consolidation, although the films do not establish the Fremen as a democratic polity. The article contributes a focused interpretive framework for examining how popular cinema represents the legitimation of violence and the political limits of liberation narratives.